


take your time

by Prinzenhasserin



Series: experience sends terrific bills [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Anbu Hatake Kakashi, Gen, In pain, Kakashi gets a genin team, Kakashi spends most of his time unconscious, Missions, Multi, POV Hatake Kakashi, looking underneath the underneath, no that isn't a double entrende, or Both, the Hatake clan is from Uzushio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2018-06-08 00:32:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6831670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinzenhasserin/pseuds/Prinzenhasserin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hatake Kakashi has been through way too many back-to-back missions lately, and while he's unable to escape, the Hokage assigns him a genin team. To carry on his legacy, apparently, as if teaching countless generations of Anbu wasn't legacy enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. take your time

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by going to a convention with my little sister and her friends. She was twelve, and I was 21. I feel you Kakashi, I feel you.

Kakashi usually runs away from his problems until he can't anymore. He was born on the run, and that was a definite omen for the rest of his life. One day, he hopes to drop dead from running, but that day has not arrived today.

He is remembering trees, when he wakes. Endless, countless trees— but instead, it smells of antiseptic.  
There's a bright light in a white room.

He wakes up in the hospital, and when he opens his eyes, the Sandaime Hokage is about ten inches from his face. He tries to groan, and jerks back, but he is completely paralysed from what is most likely bone deep chakra exhaustion (and the broken collar bone, and the misaligned vertebrae, not to mention that tendon he suspects was cut, and held together with plenty of chakra strings for all the way from Kumo).

Kakashi's eyes take a while to focus. When they do, they settle on the hairs that grow out of the Hokage's nostrils.

Kakashi closes his eyes again quickly and makes a pained moan. His parched throat turns it into a squeak.

"I am suspending you from ANBU for 8 months," his Hokage tells him.

It's his grandfatherly face, which means this is serious. Kakashi has heard that sentence at least a hundred times now, usually followed up with a new mission uniquely suited to his talents.

Oh, no, Kakashi thinks, and despairs. This might be bad. This might be running away undercover as a bar maid in Rice Country bad.

"It's a problem when my substitute ANBU general is unable to fight! As soon as he has enough chakra for a D-rank jutsu, he runs away on another mission— How do you think Konoha's reputation suffers, when the famed Copy Nin is running away from just A-rank missing nin? And from Yumegakure, no less! This is not a valid coping mechanism, and it hasn't been for the past dozen times," Sarutobi looks at him reproachfully.

Kakashi is offended. He has never even imagined in his entire life he could just get up and go on another mission. When he tries to complain, no sound comes out of his mouth. He knew running through Sand without sufficient water supply would bite him in the ass — he didn't think it would be quite so metaphorically (Bisuke likes to drown his victims in slobber, it makes them taste better, he says.) All of the missions he takes have ended with the full satisfaction of the client, and if he ends up worse for the wear, it's not like he does so on purpose.

"If I didn't know better," Sarutobi continues with a slight twinkle in his eyes, and Kakashi is absolutely doomed, "I would say you needed to be put on extended psychological leave."

Kakashi knows running away is useless. He is caught, hook, line, sinker, pulled out of the water and already headless and deboned. That one seduction mission with Gai could never be topped, surely. And why is that mission in Rice country at the forefront of his mind, anyway—it's not as if Gai crossdressing with his green jumpsuit underneath was a pleasant experience. He tries nevertheless — the only body part he can move is his left pinky toe.

"But don't fear!" Sarutobi has the benevolent despot routine down pat. "You don't have to sit around and do nothing! As a matter of fact, this is a particularly good time for you to be useless."

That stabs like a thousand lightning cutters (not that he knows from personal experience). And, of course, like the tyrant he is, the Hokage adds: "The academy students are graduating to genin next week. If you get your assigned team up to scratch when the chuunin exams arrive, you'll be able to rejoin AnBu two months early."

Kakashi is not ashamed to say he whimpers. With the last vestiges of his breath he says: "I want clan kids." Because they are usually the ones that already know most of the genin stuff, and so it's much easier to bring them all to an acceptable level of competence, even when he will be struggling to do the most basic of jutsu.

"There are 27 graduates — this should make three nice team cells. The less talented can go for the forces or administrative jobs." Sarutobi says. "You're going to split them with Asuma and Kurenai."

Kakashi groans. "Wasn't she promoted, like, five weeks ago?"

"Eight months," Sarutobi admits. "But I need someone to keep an eye on the Uchiha. His therapist is worried."

Kakashi's mind is occupied with the eye joke. "So you give the job to me and then I won't have eyes left for the rest of the genin?" he asks, and then repeats, "I want clan kids."

His Hokage smiles in that kind elderly way of his, and from the sinking feeling in Kakashi's gut he knows he's not getting clan kids.

* * *

Kakashi frowns and looks at the really very colourful Hokage monument. The third face is particularly obnoxious. He squints. This, of course, makes him wobble a bit on the tree branch he is sitting on. Chakra exhaustion has a wide variety of obnoxious symptoms no shinobi wants, but under these circumstances the inner ear imbalance is particularly aggravating.

ANBU Cat is standing guard quite a distance away at the Hokage Tower, and Kakashi is too out of it to check if it's Genma or Tenzō - they alternate masks every Tuesday. He waves, and then wobbles.

Pakkun, who like a good dog is doing his utmost to keep him in an upright position — was frowning too. "Are you sure you'd rather die falling from a tree rather than babysitting some pups?" he growls.

The ANBU waves back awkwardly. It's Tenzō, and Kakashi feels slightly better that he isn't completely helpless. (Even though he might have felt even better, if Genma had come over to flirt with him. Alas.)

"Do you think the Hokage bribed Kurenai to be this enthusiastic about teaching?" Kakashi asks his dog despondently. He has just snuck out — uh, escaped, a preliminary meeting about the graduating group. Kurenai was there, and for some reason she seemed even more enthusiastic about graduating than when she was doing it herself. He has not thought that possible.

Also, through the sneaky application of spy-techniques (a.k.a. asking) he found out that the only reason Asuma was part of the teaching assignments, is that he called dibs on the Ino-Shika-Cho team 2.0, a constellation that was never going to happen again in their lifetime.

It seems almost pointless to wonder. Of course he's getting the Uchiha.

There's a sudden wind current. Kakashi wobbles again, but catches himself at the last possible moment. "Why'd they have to kill all the Uchihas?"

"There, there." Pakkun says, and claps him between the shoulder-blades. It's precisely timed, so that the inherent imbalance caused by chakra exhaustion, and the senbon needle still stuck in his ear, is negated. The needle is pretty new. He's a bit embarrassed about that, but apparently Genma did not appreciate being sent out on a babysitting mission again, and had a little something to say with his favourite weapon. Kakashi finds the throwing needle in his ear a small price to pay.

But babysitting makes him think of his new students. And he despairs.

"If all else fails, you can always dump them at the academy again." Pakkun tries to comfort him. "Or leave them with Root."

They sit together in silence contemplating the powerful message of Naruto's decorating job.

"So how much yakiniku do I need to buy to bribe you into pretending to be me?"

Pakkun grumbles. "Why? So you can pretend you're a real ninja that won't fall apart by the slightest wind?"

"Exactly," Kakashi says. "Genin are vicious. They can smell fear."

"I can smell fear," Pakkun objects, "you just want to look cool."

"So?"

There's a short pause in which the ninken does a remarkable job of keeping the almost insensate Kakashi upright. "15 pounds."

"15 pounds of meat!?" Kakashi repeats incredulously. Then he reconsiders. "Ok," he says. "Well worth it."

Pakkun smirks as his boss finally loses his balance, and not even his well-trained reflexes can help him. Pakkun follows him down the tree much more elegantly and pokes the immobile body with a paw. "Boss?" he asks.

Kakashi groans. He can feel all his bones separately. Maybe the Hokage did know what he was talking about when he ordered a vacation. On second thought, maybe not. He could remember Gai being genin with excruciating clarity.

"I can smell Gai coming," his dog says a little meanly.

Kakashi, halfway to convincingly faking that he's just lying against this tree to read porn, stops and sniffs the air.

"Just kidding," his pug tells him snickering.

"I hate you," Kakashi moans, "I hate all of you. Everyone."

Pakkun sobers and sends him a sharp look. "You could have avoided the chakra exhaustion. It wasn't necessary to drive your body to its limits. There's always the chance it will give out."

Kakashi doesn't say anything, but sometimes that's an even better admission of guilt.

"Pups will be good for you," the dog says and kicks his boss. The all-present Icha-Icha book falls out of Kakashi's fingers and onto his face.

"You're pathetic," Kakashi complains, but doesn't move a muscle. Can't maybe. Pups are gonna be awful.

A Cat mask appears in front of the sky.

"Are you all right, senpai?" Tenzō asks.

"Kill me now," Kakashi says, and Tenzō does not. Tenzō, like the good little kouhai he is, takes him piggy back to his ANBU quarters and dumps him onto the bed. The bed smells of antiseptic and dried blood from at least three people, definitely an indication he should spend more time in the village, at least to clean his uniform and bed sheets more than once a month.

* * *

It's bright outside and somebody must have applied a sound-amplifying jutsu to his window. There cannot be a different explanation for the sheer loudness of the birds outside. About nine of his toes and his left shoulder are fine, the rest of his body is on fire.

The first conscious act of Kakashi's day is summoning his dogs, the second to moan in pain. A shinobi may not know the feeling of pain but in the comfort of his bed he is allowed to express it.

He thinks of the genin he's supposed to get today.

He stops thinking.

By the time he arrives at the Hokage's office - for the paperwork, the liability issues, and the mandatory scolding because of reasons - it's noon and he should be on the way to meeting the genin. Before that, he's gotta stop by his ANBU squad. With him out of the running the command structure is a bit wonky, since his second, Tenzo, doesn't have the qualification to lead a team.

Then, he finds out about the traitor.

Needless to say, by the time he arrives at the Academy, he's bone tired, cranky and in need of some serious chakra.

It doesn't get better from here on out.

* * *

Kakashi is sitting perched on the tree that has the most strategic distance from both the Academy and the Hokage Tower. If he leans slightly to the side he can see his newly minted genin's classroom, and he's in direct sightline of the ANBU Mongoose standing on the window ledge of the second tower window. Depending on the weekday it's either Tenzō or Anko, and from the answer to his quick handsign of "Yo, pay attention!" he guesses it isn't the former.

The obligatory dog at his side squints and then tells him, "The language these youngsters use with their superiors," and shakes his head. "You should really let us run them ragged on the next training course."

"Technically, right now, I am not their superior," Kakashi says mildly, and focuses on his three rascals in the classroom. If nothing else, he's really entertained while he's trying to scrape enough chakra for at least two fancy jutsu, because since he came here, the two boys have kissed, all of them have yelled at each other and now the jinchūriki of the fox is building a trap that might have gotten a chūnin (he's going to spring it, see what happens).

He doesn't know if he should be impressed or horrified, but Bisuke leans towards impressed.

"When Orochimaru comes to invade the village like the Honourable Councilman says," Bisuke says, and this sentence is so laden with double meanings Kakashi almost falls down the tree, "are you going to call on us and let us fight, or are you going to run away as always?"

"You really want to get crippled by snakes? Fine by me," Kakashi says flatly, and silently despairs.

He's going to run, of course — he still is, hasn't stopped running since his mother was fleeing pregnant with him from the fall of Uzushio, and that is all that's left of the Hatake legacy: a pack of dogs, and a coward who cannot stop running. There is no chance he will let anyone else die by Orochimaru's hand, not as long as he's alive to prevent it.

He's going to run, and he _knows—_ this is his fight, his endless fight for acknowledgement, and to restore the honour of his name, his clan, his village — he's going to run towards the danger and not away from it.

The eraser lands flat in his face, and the bawling laughter that sounds so much like Minato-sensei hurts like a motherfucker. Hurts almost as much as the similarities of this Team 7 with the former, but nothing hurts as much as the fact that should he run away again from Orochimaru, Danzo and the rest of Konoha politics, he's going to lose just as much if he stays to fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what happens on the mission to Rice country that is continuously mentioned.
> 
> It's a bit of meta story-telling, as it doesn't precisely fit into the story arc, but people seem to like it.  
>  __
> 
> _The Hokage followed the recommendation of his head medic, and dropped a SUSPENSION NOTICE on his ANBU commander because between his normal duties and visiting the children he rescued from Orochimaru, Kakashi (said ANBU) had not been sleeping for days._
> 
>  
> 
> _Instead of going home, he had spent all his time at the hospital watching over the children._
> 
>  
> 
> _The situation normalised when Kinoe [Tenzo] stabilised — they could now take turns watching over the others._
> 
>  
> 
> _The Hokage didn't rebuke Kakashi, because they were still reeling from the Orochimaru and the Root thing._
> 
>  
> 
> _._
> 
>  
> 
> _The second time the Hokage wrote a suspension notice, Kakashi found an old law that stated clan heads need a majority of the council to be forced into suspension. As the only Hatake, he was still the head of his family._
> 
>  
> 
> _It went to vote and both Homura and Danzo voted against suspending one of the foremost fighters of the village._
> 
>  
> 
> _The law was abolished immediately after._
> 
>  
> 
> _._
> 
>  
> 
> _The third time the Hokage wrote a suspension notice was shortly after the Uchiha massacre._
> 
>  
> 
> _His Sharingan was now the only active bloodline talent of its kind, and of course there had a law that stated suspension of an endangered bloodline talent was a waste of village resources and needed approval of the council (who would not approve)._
> 
>  
> 
> _._
> 
>  
> 
> _The forth or fifth time, Kakashi got a medic to declare him legally blind. It was later overturned, but the next few months he also didn't have to turn in written reports, so he counted that as a big win._
> 
>  
> 
> _._
> 
>  
> 
> _This was, of course, when the Hokage started waving around papers that say: Vacation Time, or Mission To Hot Spring Country, or Weapons Acquisition; basically anything that will get Kakashi from doing missions for a time._
> 
>  
> 
> _Needless to say, on a shinobi of Kakashi's caliber and ability, they did not work._
> 
>  
> 
> _The Hokage started visiting Kakashi personally to bring his edicts — but not even that worked._
> 
>  
> 
> _One time, Kakashi jumped out of the window before the Hokage can order him, and grabbed the first two people and the most important A-rank mission on file, and headed out to Rice country._
> 
>  
> 
> _Incidentally, his two partners were Gai and Kouta Aki, specialising in ninjutsu and the least feminine kunoichi ever; and the mission had a seduction part._
> 
>  
> 
> _When they put Aki into a dress and make-up she looked so incredible uncomfortable and awkward, Kakashi said they should turn back and let someone more able do the mission._
> 
>  
> 
> _Gai, wanting to keep his perfect mission record, said he could wear the dress instead, and proceeded to stuff himself (including the green jumpsuit) into the dress._
> 
>  
> 
> _Kakashi snorted and said, "Even I can do a better bar maid than that."_
> 
>  
> 
> _And then, of course, he won the challenge, and looked spectacularly good as a barmaid, and completed the seduction mission with aplomb._
> 
>  
> 
> _._
> 
>  
> 
> _There is one picture they took on that mission left, and it hangs in the ANBU kitchen, and its part of the fresh Anbu hazing process._
> 
>  
> 
> _Also, due to that photograph Kakashi got honourable mention in the Anbu seduction squad._
> 
>  
> 
> _._
> 
>  
> 
> _._  
>  — If anyone has any idea how to insert that background gently into the story without disrupting the story flow, feel free to comment. Otherwise, I'll be leaving it as is.


	2. you have it coming

The day of his genin team test found Kakashi in hospital sweet-talking a nurse. The chakra exhaustion — always exacerbated by the foreignness of the Sharingan to his chakra system — hasn't abated, and he needs at least a little bit more to test his genin.

Maybe he could get Tenzō to henge into him and test them?

Probably not.

"Not even a tiny chakra infusion?" he asked the nurse. He would address her by name — that is, if he remembered it. She's a taijutsu power house, specialising in using the strength of the attacker against them. Once, she had thrown Raidō into a wall. It was awesome.

The puppy eyes he was making at her didn't help at all to convince her, maybe because he wasn't exposing more than half an eye. Instead, she looked at him sharply, or more to the point — was scrutinising the wounds she had just rebandaged. Kakashi didn't think she could tell if they were hurting (they were), but he didn't care for the pain medicine: The strong ones that were still working after a lifetime of training up a poison resistance, alway made him feel slightly off.

"Not even a chakra infusion," she said. "But the Akimichi want me to test this-" She holds up a tiny green pill and lets it roll in the palm of her hand "— on unsuspecting Anbu. It may have debilitating side-effects from headaches to nausea to strokes. Go wild. Do not land yourself in hospital. Remember all your side-effects, and then tell them to me, not to your dogs and then forget they ever existed. Your chakra system, hell, your everything is enough of an outlier all on its own."

Kakashi eye-smiles at her, and promises to not leave his bed so soon, should he end up there again with chakra exhaustion.

It's a promise he even intends to keep, after all, even this time it was his Hokage's fault he was already up and running around.

Done with everything he needed to accomplish, Kakashi waves cheerfully and leisurely strolls out of the hospital.

He had an even more terrible morning than yesterday — chakra exhaustion always hurt before it got better — and then Genma had dumped his dirty uniform on him.

He had woken in a terrible strop, but since Genma had to leave on a mission right away, he hadn't had a suitable outlet for his ire — although he had overslept again, and was therefore certain to enrage his poor genin.

"You're late!" Naruto and Sakura shout at him. Unconsciously, they have assumed standard team formation — Naruto, the hardest hitter, in the middle, flanked by Sakura and Sasuke.

In his head, Kakashi assigns them nicknames: the Loud One, the Girl, and Blank Face.

The only one of them to react normally to his aggression is Sakura. In fact, she seems so normal, he wonders why she chose to be a ninja at all.

Naruto fights like a drunk monkey (and that is his honest evaluation, even though some people — cough, Danzo, cough — might think the potential of his parents is wasted, those people have clearly never seen a drunk monkey fight), and his everything needs work. (Except his henge. The henge is virtually perfect.)

And then there is the last Uchiha, who is a ball of barely suppressed rage with no outlet except haranguing the dead-last of the academy (Naruto, in case that wasn't clear), and the only reason he wasn't snapping at people left and right is that somebody obviously drilled him on his manners.

* * *

This is why, of course, there’s no recourse except climbing into a tree and hoping someone more qualified comes along to help. Kakashi had been appointed ANBU commander: Clearly something was wrong with the Hokage. He had never qualified working with children — he never had to work with them when he was one himself!

His cute little students— and he cannot leave those train-wrecks for someone else to deal with, too, so he’s going to be stuck with them until they graduate to chuunin at the very least — was there still time to wander off to Rice country? His students are scattered all over the forest and training grounds. Naruto is looking for something, loudly, as if he’s incapable of anything else. Sakura is busy with a rather ingenious genjutsu, and Sasuke is buried underneath a pile of dirt.They are terrible at being ninja.

With a poke to the already open wound on his knuckles, and a quick hand sign, Pakkun sits before him on a branch.

"You do know, it is pretty unnatural for dogs to be sitting on trees?" his dog asks.

"They are all so terrible!" Kakashi complains. "None of them even thought to ask for the objective, or even asked for the bells! They will be so terrible at sneaking and running away, and that’s basically all I’m good for."

Pakkun snuffles and then holds out his paw majestically. Kakashi rubs it.

"There, there," his faithful dog says, "you are also pretty good at tracking."

Kakashi sits up straight, and looks sharply at Pakkun. "But seriously. What is the Hokage thinking? They aren’t even close to a team configuration I have ever trained — and they need to be trained, desperately, without it looking like training. It looks like Sasuke regularly over-trains himself, and he needs someone to curb all his bad habits he developed being better at everything and then overtraining himself, Sakura seriously needs some physical exercise, speed and stamina both all across board, and Naruto would probably learn best by doing rather than studying."

"You’re good at subtle."

"I wish Genma was here," Kakashi sighs and sinks into himself. "Or at least Gai."

"Okay," his dog said, "I’m getting a responsible adult figure, wait here and don’t move."

Kakashi wonders where Pakkun is getting his life advice. Then he wonders where he’ll find a responsible adult figure, and then he decides sticking to his book with chakra is, in fact, a necessary waste of chakra, and no, to send out a Kage no Bunshin to watch what his cute genin are up to, isn’t.

There’s a swirl of leaves beneath him, and he sees long purple hair. The end of a naginata brushes along his leg, and he almost falls over _again_ , and damn his chakra exhaustion, why was he doing this to himself, everything sucked.

"Taichō," the warm voice of Uzuki Yūgao greets him. "I heard you got into trouble with the Hokage."

Kakashi groans, and can only imagine the type of gossip that’s been happening at the ANBU headquarters. "Do you have any experience with genin?" he finally asks.

She shrugs. "I don’t think so, no," she says, "I mainly just came here to laugh at you. This is why avoiding signing up for R&R is mandatory, and even when you’re genius enough to hide from all the enforcing officers, you shouldn’t."

Kakashi is going to invent something that makes him look extra pitiful so all of his honored subordinates will stop mocking him. Sometimes, it was simply hard to remember that standard procedure was important. He did not want to imagine who else Danzo would allow to train the jinchūriki and the last Uchiha, and more importantly, with whom would they be allowed on missions out of the village?

His eye hurts with the faint echo of chakra exhaustion, but probably more the fact that this team, even to his shinobi genius, doesn’t fit together as anything but a frontline battle team. The rumours concerning the upcoming strife with Suna don’t help — nor does the establishment of a new village. All the signs point to an end of the fight with the other Shinobi villages, and the outbreak of a war.

Kakashi shakes his head. He’s probably just getting paranoid in his old age.

His fellow ANBU looks at him carefully. "Are you alright?"

"I’m getting paranoid in my dotage," Kakashi sighs, and plays up his melancholy. "Look at all the grey hair I’m getting."

"I can feel them coming, too," she laughs, "but I had no idea you grow so sensitive when you are hurt!"

Kakashi, who couldn’t sense the genin coming, at all, used the information and prepared for a non-lethal counter strike. "Go," he told the other ANBU, "if you’re not going to be helpful, and mock me, then you might as well leave and do something useful."

Now he can feel his upcoming team, and they are way closer than he thought.

Instead of leaving, Yūgao conceals herself in the canopy of a tree — he wastes a few seconds to admire that layered genjutsu, whips out the Book and prepares for the onslaught.

* * *

Kakashi leaves his genin with a languid wave and a "See you later" and also, yet again, exhausted to the point of passing out.

It takes only a few steps outside his team’s sight range that Yugao sidles up from behind and says, "They left Naruto bound and in ropes."

He contemplated going back for a second, then turns around to stare at Yugao. "He produced about… say 500? — 500 shadow clones."

She looks uncomprehending at him, and then smiles sweetly. "I see," she says, "you’re jealous."

Kakashi huffs.

"Never thought I’d see it," she chuckles.

Kakashi ambles along the street. It looks easy, and he trained for so long, he cannot make it look like it feels anymore — what he feels is anxious, and sore, and so much fucking pain. "He’s a genin, for fuck’s sake," he grumbled, "what’s he even going to do with all that chakra."

"Even you get jealous!" Yugao crows, and skips alongside. "And of genin, of all people!"

Kakashi follows her more slowly, but he is still walking with her.

Yugao turns around, and asks, "Why did you never get jealous of my awesome skills?"

Kakashi, whose mind flashes back to when she sensed his genin way before he did, praises his obfuscation skills, says instead: "Your kenjutsu could use some work."

She gasps dramatically, and mimes a kunai that pierced her heart, "You wound me deeply, taicho. What do you even know about the art of the sword?"

They have arrived at Yakiniku Q and there’s a whole group of ninja waiting for them. "The Hatake clan has some roots from the samurai," he says in answer to Yūgao’s question, and then to one of the shinobi standing there, "Genma. Back so soon?"

"Thanks for washing my uniform," the handsome guy with a needle in his mouth says. "It turned out to be the easiest A-rank ever. Not a single enemy action, I was almost embarrassed to cash in the mission."

"What are you talking about?" Tenzō asks Yūgao.

"My abysmal kenjutsu." she answers.

Tenzō scoffs.

"I thought the Hatake came from Uzushio. Weren’t they like, retainers for the Uzumaki?" Anko wants to know.

Kakashi shrugs, "And before that they were Samurai. None of the villages are old, in any sense of the world."

They sit down to eat, and Kakashi feels almost like himself again. He doesn’t like to think of the past. The past is where all his ghost are telling him to stop running and make things right.

Kakashi can’t make things right — the only thing he really knows how to do is being sneaky and killing people. He’s a good shinobi, and in everything else he’s simply— late. A failure.

"I challenge you to a duel!" the voice of Gai says behind him, and Kakashi immediately jerks into Genma. "My taijutsu against your kenjutsu! If I should lose I will go to every ANBU and tell them of your Youthful Battle Prowess!"

Kakashi only notices that the Power of Youth isn’t directed at him, after he is halfway buried in Genma’s lap.

When Genma chuckles, Kakashi can feel it in his bones. (Do bones get brittle during prolonged chakra exhaustion? Kakashi doesn’t think so.) "Everything okay?" he asks.

"This day shall now end," Kakashi declares from Genma’s lap. They are of the same age, but Kakashi has always been Genma’s superior officer. "I don’t want to anymore."

It’s weird, because outside of ANBU, the military structure is slightly less all encompassing. If there was combat, Genma would still defer to him, but now there are jokes. (There were jokes before too. But being a jōnin-sensei _feels_ different.)

"I’m not going to carry you to your bunk, taicho," Genma says, as if in answer to his thoughts.

It’s loud in the restaurant, and Kakashi knows these people, trained this people until they met his standards and could be let out into the world.

They didn’t fail too bad at being shinobi, his generation, the generation that knows what atrocities are committed when there is a war, and wants to avoid that at all costs.

Kakashi hasn’t spoken with the other new jōnin teachers yet, but he thinks the new generation has a huge potential.

"500 fucking shadow clones," he tells Genma. "And of course you’ll carry me to my bunk. I washed your disgusting clothes, you slob," and then he passes out.

Chakra exhaustion, man. It sucks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a fight between Uzuki Yuugao and Maito Gai, who would win?


	3. you might as well practise

__

"You're late!" was shouted at Kakashi from three different directions—the most irritated voice coming from Sakura surprisingly.

They had started with light courier missions, D-rank of course, which meant running between the academy, the mission desk, the gate guard posts, and the hospital. Naruto was mostly bored, but running that much made him less twitchy, and Sasuke was a stoic ninja brat— though Sakura wasn't used to running around and the constant muscle strain would get better later, and it meant a steady training exercise.

None of them had, in fact, noticed they were being trained already, but Kakashi would never stoop so low as to explain himself. And if they only realised he had been training them from day 1 when they had to train people themselves (like he had, when he trained his first ANBU squad), well.

"How about some training, huh!" Naruto shouted into his ear. He was hopping up and down on the spot, and looked ridiculous and orange as always, but seemed even more hyper than usual.

"Well," Kakashi smiled. His genin were going to hate him. "I picked up another mission, but if you want training so badly, you can run around Konoha three times."

"Yes!" Naruto yelled, then realised what Kakashi had actually said, "No—wait! That isn't what I meant!"

"Start running," Kakashi said. The glowers, and tiny attempts at killing intent were hilarious. Also, this training worked even better than he had anticipated.

"First one back gets first pick of the mission!" he shouted after them, and both Naruto and Sasuke picked up speed—Sakura turned around to glare at him one last time.

* * *

"Kakashi-sensei is a lazy ass," Naruto said, and shot an angry glare towards the river bank, where in the dry grass their jounin-sensei sat and read in his infernal book.

Naruto had spoken softly, but it being Naruto it was still three times louder than normal, and Kakashi could hear it perfectly well without even enhancing his ears with chakra. He waved cheerfully.

Sasuke's grunt, while not as audible, could also be clearly understood.

Sakura, who had lagged behind while running, had the least favourable job of standing knee-deep in the muck of the river, and so didn't say anything.

It was warm outside—Kakashi certainly didn't expect too much from his genin. He had brought grown men to his knees by making them clean out the seal filtering system leading to Konoha's water system in winter, while someone had to continuously break down the ice crystals forming—Genma had been ready to spit fire, but Kakashi made them do it by hand. For character building, of course.

"If you take too long, I won't be able to teach you any ninjutsu," he said and turned a page.

"Alright!" Naruto cheered, and created ten clones, "Awesome jutsu, here I come!"

Sasuke scowled at the Naruto-clone that popped up beside him, but let him help and even Sakura who was visibly exhausted renewed her effort.

* * *

Gradually, they picked up missions of greater difficulty. Kakashi's genin still did not think he was training them very well, though they could now run 10 rounds around the village and do a couple of D-rank missions. They also had developed an excellent reputation with Konoha's farmers, due to Naruto using shadow clones to his best advantage (after admittedly being a bit dense which particular weed the farmer was cultivating—Kakashi suspected Naruto thought all plants were weeds, except for the ones that did interesting things, like, say, smell like a corpse, or look like a bowl of ramen, or poison by contact)

They are also getting quite good at dodging, since he started throwing live weapons at them when they started thinking about slacking of. Especially Sakura has developed acute paranoia about things moving at her at high speeds.

Even de-trapping the ANBU-training fields doesn't take them more than two hours now, where at the beginning they needed an entire day. (In the afternoon, Naruto had become excessively bored, and decided the best way to find all the traps would be to trigger them himself, and between looking at the inside of his hands and praying to all the gods, ever, Kakashi admitted that it had been a tactic that worked for Naruto.)

* * *

The symptoms of his chakra exhaustion have abated. At least, that's what his mandatory ANBU medic says before he is declared missions ready again.

And Kakashi, who has spent his entire morning hungover designing training plans for his little genin, soldiers, fucking canon fodder, who won't be able to do all the things they want to do, because they got only half a jounin sensei, if that, because Hokage-sama needs a fucking ANBU to root out the evil. Pun intended.

Kakashi has spent more than half his life being a ninja for this village, this Hokage even, and he does not understand his orders anymore. Hasn't understood his orders since he fought Orochimaru, one of the great Sannin, one of the greatest heroes of their time, surrounded by the corpses of children.

Kakashi was born in Konoha, and yet there are rumours he isn't one of them, an Uzushio native, foreign. They are allies, Uzushio and Konoha, were allies — but apparently that makes their differences count more.

Mio, the medic, looks at him. Kakashi calms his fluctuating chakra and smiles wryly. "No rest for the wicked," he says.

"I heard you have a genin team," she says, and she does not look at him which is the most blatant emotional manipulation an ANBU is allowed.

"Yes," Kakashi says cautiously.

"It's Naruto's genin team," she says, as if that explains everything. But it does, it's heartbreaking, because the only way she could have known, as an ANBU medic inside the village, was on bodyguard runs (or during that thing with the Academy traitor).

"Why is Hokage-sama assigning an undercover training mission to an ANBU commander?" she says, and put the other way around, Kakashi suddenly understands.

Kakashi is doing in-village missions to preserve the illusion that someone needs to train Naruto, that enemies are on to the jinchuuriki. And what better time that there actually is a distinct possibility of an attack by Suna or Sound.

And on the other hand, give the illusion of not training the jinchuuriki at all. And who does not want the jinchuuriki to be trained? Who would like the last Uchiha to cultivate into a weapon that only one person could use?

Kakashi gets up, and so does a copy of himself.

Mio watches him reproachfully. "Is that how you preserve your chakra?" she asks.

Kakashi grins at her, and she won't see anyway, because there are two masks on his face already. Hound — to make a statement.

* * *

He's reasonably sure no one noticed him riffling through the secret accounts of Root, when he heads back to the Intelligence building. They call it Torture&Interrogation, because that's expected by the foreign villages, and gives out a reasonably sinister feeling— the Yamanaka clan has long since proven that torture doesn't yield results. At least results that can be verified elsewhere.

He finds Anko without face mask, riffling through the small kitchenette adjunct to the most used interrogation room.

She obviously notices his arrival — she should, he flared his chakra like a good shinobi, but continues to pull out packages of instant… _something_.

"Damn," she sighs finally, after the 15th similar package has joined the others on the counter. "I hate Hayate so much. I thought I had at least instant bean paste somewhere, but no, the stupid fucker has deluged us with endless amount of weird sesame crap."

Kakashi's bewilderment must have been apparent, and with one fluid movement Anko turned around, poured water over a black substance, stirred and set the bowl in front of Kakashi, "Maybe you like it. I think it's disgusting— the first time I smelled it, it smelled almost like Dango, but then it wasn't."

Kakashi looks down at the black-greyish slop and pulls the spoon out. It clings.

"Where did he get this?" he asks, in lieu of actually tasting it.

"Mission to Snow, I guess? No idea. Ibiki seems to like it, though," Anko plops herself into the chair, and stretches.

Kakashi takes a spoonful. It tastes like sesame, and rice flour. He takes another. "It's—" he says, but he can't find anything good to say. On the other hand, also nothing bad.

"Yes," Anko says, and almost tips over in her chair. "It's as bland as a fresh faced civilian. Anyway. That academy teacher doesn't seem to be working for Orochimaru, more like Danzo? But in a very limited capacity, and he also seems to have met Orochimaru, for all he seems to brave the tongue licking out."

"Huh," Kakashi acknowledges, and then dips another spoonful in his mouth.

"Like it?" Anko asks.

"No," Kakashi answers, "but I can't stop eating it." And he eats the rest of the bowl.

* * *

Not hungry anymore, but craving something satisfyingly salty or of any kind of spice at all, _please_ , he makes his way back to the jounin mission room, where maybe Gai had left some of his curry.

He's at the door when he feels chakra, and stops — he didn't think Gai was going to train this early, and the graveyard shift wasn't over yet.

"Do you think it was the right thing to do?" Asuma asks Kurenai. They are sitting together, obviously relaxing, and Kakshi is backing out of the room slowly—these are his friends, and he's seen them naked enough times. What else where they doing in the missions room a few hours before dawn?

He hears Kurenai reply, "What—the genin team?" and he wavers.

"Asking dad to retire Kakashi from ANBU, yes," Asuma says, and Kakashi stills. What.

"Why? Don't you think he looks happier?" Kurenai asks.

Happier? Kakashi didn't feel happier—no. Instead he now has to command ANBU while keeping three genin out of trouble and alive.

"He can fake happiness pretty well," Asuma says, and Kakashi hears shifting. "And he doesn't seem to have feeling of any depth. He hasn't come to talk. He doesn't seem to experience much beside watching over his team. He's—he mastered smiling when there's something funny while feeling absolutely miserable a long time ago. I dunno—I feel the genin team might have burdened him further."

"If he's busy worrying about other people, he won't think about—" she interrupts herself, thinks of a better word, "Death. He won't think about death."

They are silent, and so is Kakashi. He hears the pounding of his blood in his ears, and rushing through his veins. They did not know anything. He spoke to friends. He was even worrying about the upcoming invasion, about Danzo and what the fucker had on Orochimaru or the other way round. And yes, his genin. the team wasn't the Hokage's idea? So why did he get Naruto, why did he get the last Uchiha—they weren't training them to fight, were they? They were making them sitting ducks, in a war about who had the most jinchuuriki and bloodlines, and of course the civilian girl would never have her parents complain.

No. This was not planned, this was a coincidence. They were fine. Nobody was onto them, and they would be just as useful as any other genin team. And if he was going to train them, he might as well train them for ANBU—overkill. That's what he was going to strive for.

(They might survive, if they were prepared for every eventuality.)

* * *

Kakashi assigned them the fence painting mission, so they would keep out of trouble while he did some reconnaissance.

Half an hour in, he's called back by his clone— and he cannot believe his eyes.

His genin have loaned out the fence painting to various academy students, who are proud as honeybees, and doing the work his genin are getting paid for free.

Konohamaru, who Kakashi knows as a fact, makes Ebisu do his academy homework, proclaims he hasn't had so much fun in ages. Some of them are even paying with priced possessions (like googles, and crooked kunai, but still) for the privilege of doing the genin's missions for them.

Kakashi shun-shins behind his genin, who are standing there like proud little peacocks, and clears his throat.

Sakura turns around in a panic, but Sasuke and Naruto keep their cool.

Naruto even yells proudly, "Sensei, the fence is done!"

And when Kakashi looks, the fence is indeed "done", and has plenty of paint layers on top of "being done". The paint bucket is almost empty.

Sakura looks terrified of being scolded, and even Sasuke seems braced against criticism. Naruto just grins like the sun.

And while Kakashi doesn't think they know what he was trying to teach them, they sure learned their lesson well.

"Excellent use of allied sources," he says, and promises to himself that their next mission is going to be catching the demon cat.

He feels betrayed by his own feeling of pride, and promises himself he won't get caught off guard like this again.

__


	4. the world is waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out, I'm going to be editing all the chapters every time I update, because I'm really bad at catching typo's and grammar mistakes after reading the same story the umpteenth time.
> 
> Many, many thanks to ANarrativeCloud who is a terrific beta!

"I am going to take them on a C rank mission," Kakashi tells Genma. They are sitting on the ANBU building, drinking sake. Kakashi is having a minor crisis about life, and death, and more specific, the upcoming conflict with Orochimaru, Danzo, and everyone else they recruited for the scheme.

Genma, is being Genma, and due to some unspecified extraordinary circumstances, is not out having sex with random civilians. Kakashi would worry, but well—

Genma splutters around the needle in his mouth. "Weren’t they in the academy, like, a month ago?" he asks.

"Yes." Kakashi says, and stares across to the other building that doesn’t house the Root training facility, no sir, there is no training facility here.

It’s Genma’s apartment, and they are sitting on the roof he owns, so it might not be suspicious? There’s a bottle of sake between them. Genma is the only one of his fellow ANBU members who has an apartment. It’s because Genma is the only one of them who has regular relationships with people from outside of ANBU. That’s because Genma has run out of people to have relationships with in ANBU, but Kakashi is not judging. Except — really? He has to have excellent interpersonal management experience, which does not translate _at all_ to his mission success rate.

Genma had complained, years ago now, that outsiders could rarely understand why ANBU members regularly slept in each other’s beds — ate each other’s food, and used each other’s socks, and sometimes even underwear.

(Kakashi sometimes can’t remember when he last went shopping. It must have happened some time, because his regular canned dog food is in the kitchen pantry — or maybe there’s a house spirit that washes towels and refills the cabinets. Kakashi has the vague suspicion that house spirit is called Tenzo.)

"Does this have anything to do with council member Danzo kicking up a stink because there’s an investigation inside the village he knows nothing about?"

"--How did you hear about that?" It is alarming that Genma knows he is investigating Root. If Genma knows, half the village is probably intimately aware.

"Hokage’s protection detail," Genma says quickly. "Was I not supposed to hear about it?"

"Well— It’s not worrying per se, but—" Kakashi shakes his head. Maybe there is nothing to worry about.

"Not the kind of conversation to have on a rooftop?"

Maybe there is something to worry about. "That’s not it. This is probably the safest place to have this conversation — in full sight of the enemy. They won’t be able to read my lips, too, so that’s that. It’s just— Danzo has Root, and Root had Orochimaru, and Orochimaru has Kusa, and Kusagakure wants in on the chuunin exams, the first chuunin exams in Konoha, since Orochimaru left the village."

"Fled, you mean," Genma says. He seems entertained, for some unfathomable reason. Maybe he thinks Kakashi has everything under control, and it’s nice when one's subordinates have faith in him. Kakashi, however, is close to a breakdown, and does not think he has anything under control, at all.

Kakashi snorts, then says, "I’m not that conceited. I wasn’t much of a threat, at the end. I think it was Tenzo who held me up."

"I have no idea what the deal is with you two," Genma says. He may not know that Tenzo once tried to kill Kakashi, even though he knows Tenzo was an experiment of Orochimaru.

"I have no idea why he keeps doing things for me either," Kakashi says, and sighs. "But I’m probably going to ruin it by picking a fight with Danzo, right when Orochimaru is going to invade. I hate this. I hate it so much, Genma, tell me again why I became an ANBU commander."

"I have no idea. I always thought it was because everyone you loved died."

"That sounds sad."

"Yes, which is why I thought it was true. Is it not?"

"Genma," Kakashi says and falls onto his knees, "I think I’m drunk."

"You said you were taking your genin on a C-Rank mission. If you weren’t getting drunk the day before, I would worry you were not taking this seriously."

"Not everyone deals with his issues by drunkenly confessing his doubts," Kakashi tells his knees.

"And you don’t, usually."

"I’m probably wrong," and Kakashi looks up to his friend. Genma has a senbon between his teeth.

"Do you remember when I joined Root?"

"No," Genma says and paused, "I’m afraid I was busy training to follow your misspent youth. You forget, while we are all older and wiser than you now, you’re our senpai ten years over."

"I joined Root," Kakashi says to ignore the jibe at his wise-cracking, "because I couldn’t stop running."

"I thought you joined Root because Danzo made an offer you couldn’t refuse."

"No — I mean, yes, he caught my attention with Uzushio, and her seals — but why would he of all people have them? His knowledge of sealing was rudimentary at best, we call him a sealmaster simply because all the good ones are dead. Kushina was leagues beyond him, she used seals to stitch other seals into her clothes. She used them as an extension of herself almost— she even had seals inscribed in the roots of her hair!  
My mother used to make her paperwork water resistant with a curl in her name.I tried recreating that, but all of mine burst into flames — I think she might have been water natured but I can’t remember.  
No, I joined Root because the Hokage made me stop, remember? He kicked me out of ANBU for three months, because he said I was running myself ragged."

"Weren’t you?" Genma asks.

"That’s not the point! Everyone who loved me outside of ANBU, was dead! There was nobody there! The only property I had, was where my father committed suicide! My assigned psychotherapist was Inoichi, who was distracted by the two-year-old he had at home, and the only one eligible with the kind of security clearance I needed! It was fucked up from the start, and I always thought it was just the Hokage getting old!"

"But now you think differently. What happened?"

"I was at the jounin standby station earlier," Kakashi confesses, "Kurenai and Asuma were talking about me. How they asked for me to be given a genin team."

Kakashi sneaks a look at Genma, who looks poleaxed.

"What? Why?" he asks, after a bit of a wait.

"Because I didn’t have any meaningful relationship with the people around me, apparently?"

"Bullshit," Genma says angrily, and it’s strangely satisfying to see him get worked up over this. Kakashi feels vindicated. "Asuma wasn’t here for the last twelve years. He has no right to poke at coping habits of other people. And even Kurenai should know better! She’s friends with Anko for heaven’s sake — next thing you know Anko is running around with impressionable children."

"To be fair," Kakashi quirks a smile. It’s an interesting picture, but-- "Anko isn’t eligible to train genin teams."

"You shouldn’t be eligible to train genin teams," Genma mutters. "Next thing you know, we are sending out Ibiki with a genin team. Or how about the Hokage himself, that would be fun!"

There is a lull in conversation, until Genma asks, "You think someone influenced your first suspension, too?"

"—I…I’m not sure." Kakashi nudges a roof tile with his foot. "This might be — ah. I think Danzo is trying to get rid of all the sealing masters still alive?"

"But there’s you."

"I’m a screw up and a faker. There’s me, and who else? There are the summoners, who don’t seem all that keen on expanding to the paper arts, except for Ibiki, who well— has a pain problem that makes him ineligible for anything but T&I. There’s Jiraiya who is never in village, and then — nobody."

They look at the building across where there is an Anbu silhouette stationed. It’s a crane mask, but Crane has never been switched to anyone in particular, and should not be in use now. Both of them know. The Hokage knows, and is either unwilling or unable to do anything. Kakashi does not know which is worse.

"Am I paranoid?" Kakashi asks.

"It sounds crazy," Genma admitted. "I wish Uzushio was still standing."

"I wouldn’t be here though,"

"You’d be here." Genma said. "You’d be the Uzukage by now, maybe."

Kakashi laughed, "The Uzukage was always an Uzumaki, and you can’t believe in any situation a sane person would elect me as a Kage."

"You know," Genma said suddenly, "It would be really funny, if Naruto was the Uzukage. Imagine the brat that painted the monument as a visiting dignitary. Deciding which of his genin teams to promote."

Kakashi looked Genma deadpan in the eye, and Genma burst out laughing. "If you were a Kage though, do you think they’d have you on the monument with your eternal face mask?"

"I certainly wouldn’t take it off for the sculptor."

* * *

Team 7 left early in the morning. The client was hung-over, and smelled like a distillery, over-powering everything else. Naruto had put the entirety of his apartment in his backpack. Sasuke was egging Naruto’s blabbering on, and Sakura looked like she was rethinking her life choices half an hour out of the gate.

Kakashi sighed, briefly thinking about pointing out Naruto’s wait distribution problem, and then decided to just meander on.

Then, Naruto, entirely out of the blue, stopped talking about ramen, and asked Tazuna, "Where you’re from — do they have trees?"

Tazuna laughed his terrible grating laugh, and Sakura moved very quickly to hit Naruto on the head. "Don’t ask stupid questions! Of course they have trees! It’s not very far away at all."

"But it’s called the Land of Waves! Shouldn’t it have waves instead of trees?"

"Stupid," Sasuke said, "it's not like the Land of Fire has fire instead of trees."

"But the Land of Fire is called because the Will of Fire burns brightly in it’s citizens. Jiji said so! So why is the Land of Waves called that way? I never heard of the will of waves!"

"There is no such thing," Kakashi said. His genin stopped squabbling — which was noteworthy. They hadn’t since they left the village. "The Land of Waves is allied with Konoha. They have been since a long time ago, when there was a ninja village that protected the Land of Waves."

Tazuna laughed again, and Kakashi would bet a challenge to Gai that the man was still drunk — it was aggravating how the guy disrespected shinobi. Tazuna had already insulted the team he was paying to protect him, not terribly professional of him. "I know what you are talking about! Uzushiogakure was our hidden village."

"Never heard of it," Sasuke said.

"Neither have I," Sakura added, "Are you sure it was real?"

Kakashi wanted to punch something, preferably his loud-mouthed client, or his terrible students. Chakra was pooling along his spine, in preparation of an attack he wouldn’t make. "Uzushio is Konoha’s greatest regret. Of course you haven’t heard of it," his inner turmoil never appearing even as an undertone, he replied calmly. "The Uzumaki were from Uzushio, and so were the Hatake," he said to his students, as Tazuna would not know their clan names, and Kakashi wanted to keep it that way.

"What!" Naruto shouted.

"The idiot is from a clan?" Sasuke asked.

"Uzushio and Konoha were the greatest of allies, even from before they were villages. The Uzumaki princess married the founder of Konoha, Senju Hashirama. They were also the one to raise the walls of Konoha with seals — fuuinjutsu was the speciality of the Uzumaki, and Uzushio itself."

"What happened?" Sakura asked, after Kakashi did not continue. "Something did happen, right?"

"The Bloody Mist — for some reason Uzushio was a threat to their power, and they decided to eradicate Uzushio from the map."

Kakashi, whose memories don’t go that far, but who has heard the countless accounts of family members, of comrades from Uzushio, talk about the devastating blow the army from Kiri dealt that way, sees his genin, and they are horrified.

"They did not succeed fully. There were survivors who fled to Konoha, and Uzushio remained standing, in tarnished ruins. The sealwork of Uzushio was a masterpiece, and could not be torn down by the shinobi of Kiri, and the only way they entered was through a traitor who copied his own entrance pass."

Tazuna chuckled, "I have not heard that story. In our village, they only tell the story of the Mighty Mist destroying the village."

Kakashi could not suppress his Killing Intent entire, but Tazuna merely shuddered.

"I shouldn’t drink so much Sake," Tazuna muttered under his breath.

"And then? Sensei, what happened then?" Naruto wanted to know. "What happened to the Uzumaki? Did Konoha fight Kiri?"

Kakashi looked at his student. This was probably the first time he ever heard he had a clan, and Kakashi should reward the good behaviour of not shouting his clan name to the heavens. "Konoha couldn’t fight Kiri, because they were fighting against Iwa and Kumo. The rest of the Uzumaki were hunted down, until none were left. And the only memory of Uzushio is a seal, the Whirlpool spiral, stitched to every single one of out flak vests," he pointed at his own.

Sasuke looked perturbed. It was the most emotion he had shown beside annoyance, and Kakashi marked it as an improvement. Sakura was about to cry, and so was Naruto.

With a slight hitch in his breath, Naruto said, "It’s the same seal on my jacket, right?"

Kakashi used his free hand to tug at Naruto’s hair, "Yes. It’s the same seal as the one on your jacket."

Naruto stared at him, and it was strange — because Kakashi had not felt kinship to anyone, the same sense of cultural significance, the sense of belonging to something greater, in a very long time — but he felt it now.

* * *

That was, of course, when the demon brothers attacked, Tazuna turned out to be lying entirely about the mission, they met an A-rank missing nin, and Kakashi felt unconscious  because of chakra exhaustion, _again_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a bit of catching up to do because I was distracted by the first ever Queen's Thief exchange (quick note to the uninitiated: spoiler-heavy fandom; even reading the sequel blurb might spoil you; will make you throw the book at the next best wall) but I should have the next chapter up in two weeks at the latest.
> 
> Kakashi sure spends a lot of time unconscious. I'm curious, would anyone want to read another reiteration of the wave arc? Otherwise I am just going to skip to the parts I rather want to write about.


	5. in black water woods (they belong to me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not yet beta-ed

The sword arched in a perfect ellipses and with an unending elegance buried itself into the wood behind his head.

"You look like you have seen a ghost," Zabuza Momochi mocked. 

Kakashi brought his little puppies on an A-rank mission. Kakashi brought his little puppies to the Demon of the Bloody Mist, a ninja of the greatest caliber, with the weight of the most bloody of histories behind him.

"Traitor," Kakashi hissed.

"Are you really the right person to talk to me about turning my back on Uzushio and our heritage, Friend-Killer Kakashi?" The demon of the mist taunts.

The first kunai Kakashi counters goes wide, but the subsequent six find their mark.

"You serve the mist, you cannot possibly call me the friend-killer," Kakashi says to defend himself.

Zabuza laughs, "Oh, but haven't you heard? I'm not a Mist shinobi any longer."

"Still wearing their forehead protector," Kakashi counters, "And you were planning a coup— not something one would do if they wanted to leave."

Zabuza laughs, and laughing he goes down. He lays there— seemingly dead, but Kakashi still hears the laughter, interspersed with the mocking calls of "Friend-Killer, Friend-Killer"

* * *

 

With the gasp of a drowning man Kakashi shoots up.

There's a brief moment of disorientation, less than half a second, before his eye focuses on Sakura who holds vigil beside his bed.

"We arrived at Tazuna's?" he asks. Sometimes, the real world is preferable to his dreams.

Sakura nods. She looks happy, yet exhausted. It's to be expected, if they pulled off the surveillance on their own.  "Naruto and Sasuke are downstairs. Because our commanding officer was out of commission, we decided on the standard guarding perimeter of eight hour periods."

This is maybe the first status report he got from his new team that makes Kakashi, who is slightly nauseous still, get the first inkling of having quite the well balanced team. Some day, they might even function. Sakura takes the pause as an obvious indication to continue, "Naruto said the people here seem even poorer than we thought, and Sasuke thinks it’s suspicious."

"Do they?" Kakashi takes a few more seconds to put himself back together — even his chakra seems at reasonable levels. Maybe his collapse had just been a brief lapse in his convalescence? He should be so lucky. "I am also suspicious about something, and it isn’t the lack of funds of Wave country. I think the Mist hunter nin was a fake."

When he stands up gingerly, his mask feels strange and crooked. With a sharp look and an even sharper tongue, he asks, "Did you try to remove my mask?"

Sakura blushes a deep red, indication of necessary further training for their various bodily reactions.

"It was Naruto!" she says quickly. Too quickly in Kakashi’s opinion.

"And if I ask your teammates?"

She hesitated just a moment too long, "They would say the same."

Naruto would, Kakashi knows from previous encounters, but Sasuke would not see the point in lying, and while Sakura seemed to know that, she had not realized it also applied to her. He can already hear the rest of his genin downstairs, and follows the noise.

Tazuna’s kitchen is big, and empty of stuff — Naruto and Sasuke, as well as Tazuna and a, as of yet unkown, female probably his daughter, are having what smells like fish soup for breakfast. The food is sparse, and from the look in the daughter's eyes, Tazumi as she is introduced, will not last for long. It's a pity. What is there, tastes good. He tells her so, and she blushes.

Kakashi sets his students to do some exercises. He even declares them as such, since they have already done plenty on their own — Sasuke devised a rotating guarding schedule around Tazuna’s home that’s eerily similar to the old Uchiha standard. 

Slightly creepy, but it works, and so Kakashi lets it stand.

Kakashi is still not quite himself, though he feels lengths better already. The fainting must have been from the shock of having to deplete so much chakra, and not anything serious after all. His mind, however, is still on his dreams, on Konoha, on the shipping magnate who has this tiny piece of land in a chokehold. 

"How are you doing that, Sakura-chan?" Naruto shouts.

The Land of Water had been under Uzushio’s protection once. Now it’s under Konoha’s, technically.

As Sakura helps Naruto figure out how to climb a tree with his insane amounts of chakra, and Sasuke is foolhardily failing on his own, Kakashi’s thoughts circle.

_He’_ s not quite awake, and not quite dreaming — various insults, derogatory slurs he had been called all of his life, kept echoing in his mind. He's trying to feel for some wildlife. Squirrel tastes reasonably well, and is well worth the effort to catch, but his thoughts keep churning.

Everything was awful and sucked, and he didn’t know how to change any of it.

"Naruto," Kakashi calls out before he even realises he wants to. Sakura has been helping him climb trees, and he’s advancing fast, faster than Sasuke who has been grumpily sulking ever since Sakura reached the treetops and he fell off. 

Naruto keeps falling on his head from about five times his own height, and if this continues not even his demonic passenger is going to keep him from having a concussion. He won’t be happy to be kept from training. "How about we go and have a chat with this Gato character."

"Okay!" Naruto beams the sunniest smile at him. "This training is getting exhausting! I could use a break!"

Sakura and Sasuke scramble down their trees, too. "What about us, sensei?" she asks. "Zabuza could come back soon," Kakashi says. "Someone needs to keep an eye on Tazuna, just in case."

"I can do that," Sasuke says, and the "on my _own_ " is very much implied.

Kakashi smiles at him (not that he can see) and just says, "I just want this one out of trouble" and points his head towards Naruto who is skipping along the way. 

At that moment, Naruto turns and shouts, "Kakashi-sensei! Come on! Don’t be such a drag."

They look commiserating at each other, and Sasuke might have even forgotten that he does not get to accompany his sensei on a super secret mission. To reinforce the lesson Kakashi says one last thing before he turns and follows Naruto, "Sakura’s in charge. I want a detailed assessment when I get back." 

He's only three steps away, when the sinking feeling in his gut stops him, and ... "Maybe this isn't such a good idea?"

Sauke has left -- hopefully to train, and not to hunt his insane brother and kill him? Sakura is clearly scouting for Tazuna, which would be good, if she also wasn't in the _completely wrong direction_ , and Naruto has skipped ahead, and calls back, "Sensei! Are you coming!"

He keeps turning back around and skipping ahead again. On his third turn around, he still does not seem to even get winded. Kakashi hurries up and joins him. His bones are aching from exhaustion, and he is mildly jealous.

"What are we going to do with Gato? Kill him?" Naruto asks with a bloodthirsty grin on his next turn about.

Kakashi shakes his head with denial, though looking at the houses in disrepair at the side of the road, and the many, many beggars, he’s getting homicidal urges himself.  The Hokage sent thousands of Ryō each year for basic public facilities. It doesn’t seem to come down to the public at all.

"He’s a civilian," Kakashi says quietly, almost as if to convince himself.

"So?"

"Ninjas aren’t allowed to kill civilians without a contract." 

"What! Why?" Naruto asks full of indignant outrage. "Not even when it is scum like Gato?"

Kakashi chuckles without humour. "Technically, Konoha isn’t allowed to interfere with the Land of Waves, since it was Uzushio territory. So Konoha paid a sum of money to a businessman to manage it, and that person was Gato."

"Huh." Naruto says. "So does that mean we can’t kill him? Can we prank him really bad?"

Kakashi shrugs his shoulders, and relaxes into a slow slouch. "Do you remember the infiltration lessons at the academy?"

"Uhh…" Naruto scratches his head. 

"Pretending to be someone else?" Kakashi prompts him.

"Oh, yeah! You shoulda said! I was really good, except when they asked my name…" 

Soon, they arrive at Gato’s compound. It looks supremely ostentatious, but at the same time run-down like the rest of the country. The West wing of the grandiose building had visible water damage. At the guardhouse, a lone guard in ill-fitting armour and next to no noticeable chakra pathways scrambled to get in front of them.

"Halt!"

Naruto looks up to him, and then asks sceptically in his quiet whisper that was still audible across the whole yard, "Does he really think that’s what guards do?"

Kakashi has to admit that Naruto is a natural at dismissive intimidation, when that was not what he was trying to do. He creates a clone surreptitiously, and sneaks into the building. 

Kakashi shrugs. "You know. Blood always tells."

Naruto frowns and looks closer at him. "Are you alright, sensei? You seem weird. Well, weirder than usual!" Naruto looks back at the guard, and then, just like Kakashi expected, tells the guard in all his imperious glory, "Take us to your master!"

It makes him look like a brat, and that’s exactly the kind of image Kakashi wants to give off. The dumbfounded guard keeps standing there, instead of doing anything at all, and so Kakashi starts giving off little hints of Killing Intent.

The guard turns, and starts running.

A few minutes pass by, then a few figures come out of the estate. None of them seem to have any significant training in either the ninja or the samurai ways, and all of them are very, very nervous. Is the mansion ridged to explode?

"Hey! You!" the man with a giant pencil mustache yells. It’s obviously Gato. "This is private property!"

* * *

Interlude (Sasuke)

Sasuke opens his eyes with a started yelp. He had not realized someone had crept up to him while he slept, and yet there is now long dark hair in front of his face. Itachi has come back to kill him.

A jolt of adrenaline fills him, and he jumps up.

"Are you okay?"

That is not Itachi’s emotionless voice, and, for that matter, neither his clothing style nor his chakra patterns. Sasuke stares. This is a really pretty face.

"Uh," he says, very articulate.

Long hair is blowing in the breeze, and Sasuke could swear he smells jasmine (he’s no Inuzuka of course). Brown eyes instead of red look back at him. They are pretty.

"There are plants I need over there," the beautiful person in the pink kimono says, lightly. "Do you mind if I move there?"

Sasuke doesn’t mind. He’s also strangely fascinated by the byplay of the tendons in the neck framed by a brown choker. 

"I’m Haku," the person says just as lightly, and Sasuke who hasn’t experienced falling short of some undefined goal in a long time, feels inadequate.

Slightly choked up, he says, "Sasuke. My name. It’s Sasuke."

"Ah," Haku says, and then points towards the foliage in his peripheral vision, and Sasuke suddenly understands why he was woken up — it’s to close for him to have slept undisturbed, "I need these herbs."

Sasuke nods, and then, in a move wholly unfamiliar to him, offers, "May I help you?"

They move to collect the herbs. He tries to vaguely remember where he saw them last, but comes up short. "Are these medical?" he asks when curiosity overrides his sense.

"Yes," Haku says. "I need them for… my precious person."

Precious person? Sasuke is quiet. He thinks of Itachi, for some reason. 

"He’s ill." Haku adds, after Sasuke keeps helping him in silence.

Sasuke stops thinking of Itachi who never even caught a cold, and thinks of Naruto instead. The constant motion, the weird arm movements — Naruto had to be ill. "Hn," is really all he can say to Naruto.

Haku looks… Haku looks like he descended from a spirit, some snow covered fairy world, where there are no wars, and the greatest belief is love, and Sasuke would scoff and turn away, if it wasn’t what he would desperately want. A world in which… well, he doesn’t really know, does he?

"He’s my most important reason," Haku says quietly. It’s almost as if he was talking to himself. "I saw you training before. You work hard. Do you also have someone you want to be strong for? Someone you want to protect?"

Sasuke can’t say anything in reply. He’s choked up, and can’t speak. He might be allergic to this mythical medical plant.

Haku does not ask him to reply, maybe sensing that he stumbled on a sensitive topic, and they continue to collect the herbs. Before Haku leaves, Sasuke manages to stutter together a "I hope you precious person gets well soon!", and he gets back a blinding smile that he won’t forget soon, but even so — much more impressionable in his mind is the question, "Do you have someone you want to be strong for?"

The answer is obviously Itachi. The answer to everything, always, is Itachi.

But does he really want it to be?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pulling out of the trick box: Dream sequences; fake-up wake-ups; interludes in which a troubled side character gets a dubious lime light episode.
> 
> Sorry, this was a bit hard, and also very unexpected.
> 
> Side-note: Nobody who yells loudly about private property has ever cared about someone else’s private property.


	6. aiming to create

Kakashi is very glad that an old man yelling weird statements does not push Naruto’s "I’m going to be the future Hokage!"-button. Naruto appears baffled by the business man Gato, or maybe he is noticing Kakashi’s clone who is scaling the side of the conglomerate's head quarters. Either way, Kakashi uses the pause to lead the conversation and introduce his genin properly.

"In any event, it’s not _your_   private property," Kakashi says, slightly cold and very, very bored, "This is Uzushio territory."

The shipping magnate has the temerity to laugh in their faces. "Oh, Uzushio? Their terrible ninjas are long gone and buried, and their territory is up for anyone with the guts to take them! So I did. It’s mine now."

"Ah," Kakashi says mildly. His clone is inside now, and hopefully looking for outside contracts for missing nin, trade agreements with Konoha, and any left over money he can find. "If that was only so easy. You see, Gato, founder of the Gato shipping company— Konoha only let you borrow this piece of land until the heir to the Uzushio empire came of age. We no longer tolerate you on this land — this is your eviction notice."

"Who is this heir of the Uzushio empire? This is the first time I have heard of him." Gato asks suspiciously, and he is in the right, too. There is nobody to enforce Uzushio's treaties, even though technically they are all still valid. 

"He’s standing in front of you," Kakashi says with conviction. "Meet Uzumaki Naruto, the heir to the Uzushio legacy."

The thing with legacies was that once somebody declared a legitimate claim, it was very hard to deny their right to them without a counterclaim backed by a daimyo or a kage. And having just cheated Konoha out of a huge amount of money, Gato was sure to receive an unfavourable decision from the Hokage and his criminal neglect of his dependents was sure to displease the daimyo. If he even received an audience, and not a counter assassination to set an example for other would-be cheaters.

"Yeah!" Naruto adds with enthusiasm. "I’m Uzumaki Naruto, the heir to Urushio!"

Luckily, nobody pays any attention to the mispronunciation of the name of the city he is heir to, and instead focuses on the appearance: a loudmouthed, blond and blue-eyed, orange-clad pint-sized human being, continuously jumping up and down in place.

"No way," whispers one of the goons. "Boss, this has to be a scam." 

They are very distracted.

Kakashi watches out of the corners of his eyes as his clone appeared on the balcony. The clone quickly signs an ANBU mission code — cleared out all valuables, no disturbances detected — and then jumps down to hide in the nearby foliage.

Naruto, who had failed the academy sign language course three times according to his file,fluctuates his chakra in the standard ANBU pattern of acceptance; and for the brief interval of a second, Kakashi cannot stop himself from pausing. 

It's barely detectable, not even worth a mention in this kind of company, and  without further hitch he takes out a doctored scroll and declares with all the self-importance of a messenger, "The Lord Hokage Sandaime herby revokes the seal of approval from the shipping business 'The Gato shipping company' due to the hiring of missing nin, and withdraws all the support and money from ongoing business contracts…"

And as he drones on, he watches Naruto in his periphery vision. He looks hyper, but not more so than usual. Very composed, considering Kakashi just threw him into the deep end and didn’t even tell him how to swim.

Kakashi closes the scroll with, "You have until the end of the month to clear out the premises that belong to Konoha and its affiliates. We expect your immediate cooperation in this matter."

There’s silence.

Then, one of the uppity goons asks, "Or what?"

Kakashi projects his killing intent. The other guy, who has just started objecting, "The end of the month is in five…" swallows the rest of the sentence and looks close to pissing himself. 

However, what really sells it, is Naruto cheerfully piping up, "I’m going to built a Ramen fair! It’s going to be the greatest! There’ll be miso rides, and everyone will be able to bathe in delicious noodles!"

It is audacious, and Gato and his companions look gobsmacked, but not disbelieving. With this almost natural talent for deception and subterfuge Kakashi is going to have to rethink his plans to make his team into frontline fighters. Sasuke with his Sharingan, Sakura with her pink hair, and Naruto with his loud personality — they’d make the ultimate infiltration team. Nobody will ever expect it of them. Their bingo book entry alone would be hilarious.

"We’ll be going now!" Naruto announces, turns, and leaves. 

Kakashi folds the scroll into his pockets, gives Gato one last hard look, and says, "Be glad we didn’t come with an army of ninja to assassinate all of you. The boss is being very kind!"

* * *

 

On the way back to Tazuna’s home, Kakashi collects an assortment of paperwork from his clone. There's lots, and he gets the impression all of it is very, very shady. 

"How come your clones always do what they are told, and mine disappear to go eat ramen?" Naruto asks at random, halfway to their destination.

There’s a pause in his steps that Naruto surely won’t notice, and there is no way he is imagining Ramen Ichiraku beset by Naruto clones, all begging for just one more bowl of noodles and broth. 

"Mental discipline," Kakashi answers in deadpan. The Narutos in his mind have started accusing each other of eating up all the ramen, and have started a brawl. 

"No, really!" Naruto says, "I’m not kidding! Why are your clones always so focused?"

"You have to think hard about what you need them to do," Kakashi repeats in simpler words, "if you just create them with no purpose, they do what _you_ would rather want to do, and that is apparently eating ramen."

"Huh," Naruto says, and then, "Do you think Sasuke destroyed all the trees around Tazuna’s house, or did something happen?"

The trees around the house are indeed, all felled with various chakra marks. It looks like a small tornado came through the trees. 

There is no sign of Sasuke. There is no sign of Tazuna.

Some of the trees are arranged in a pattern, and most of them have losttheir branches. When Naruto takes a step, the leaves seem to attach to his natural release of chakra.  Kakashi cautiously steps forward to inspect their surroundings — and a little down from the house he finds Sakura.

* * *

 

Sakura is chopping wood with her bare hands. She seems to have started out with an axe, but the broken handle and the abandoned axe lie next to her in the grass.  Naruto is audibly impressed. 

When she hears them, Sakura turns around.

The pink hair of cherry blossoms hangs into her face, and she looks utterly exhausted, but when she sees them, she is obviously relieved.

"Sensei!" she shouts, and gods be damned, why was everyone on his team so loud? "This despicable Gato person has a tax on wood! Can you believe that! The villagers were to afraid to go gathering in the forest because Gato would send search patrols out! What an…" She takes a deep breath, and then continues anyway, "…asshole." She looks despondent on the really quite impressive amount of wood she hacked into tiny pieces. It's an impressive amount for the short time they were away.

"And so you decided to get them their wood all by yourself," Kakashi finishes her thought. His genin are all so adorable, but — "You do know we are shinobi, right? We never do anything in civilian matters without a mission?"

It was strange, really, how at times all of his genin reminded him of Obito. Most of the time, it also only hurt a little. It was almost… bearable?

Sakura looks at him with the biggest eyes he’s ever seen outside of his own summoning pack. Naruto joins her with possibly even bigger eyes (secretly Kakashi suspects a liberal application of the "puppy dog jutsu" — the ANBU guard had spent weeks talking about that ingenious henge).

Kakashi sighs. "Technically, we aren’t _allowed_ to influence civilian matters without a mission," he repeats, so that maybe at least Sakura will understand the problem.

And it takes her awhile — he can almost see the gears in her mind rattling, her big green eyes get even bigger and she asks, "Sensei? Do you think this will keep Tazuna from freezing to death or should I make some more firewood? I'm going to find Tsunami, maybe she can tell me where to put this."

Kakashi lets his eye twinkle. "You should make sure there is no need to skimp. Let Naruto help you some. Which brings me to your other teammate; where is Sasuke?"

* * *

Strangely enough, Sasuke is not off to get killed by his brother, but doing exactly what he was supposed to do without breaking any laws or treaties. Tazuna is hard at work, maybe because half his workforce was too scared to show up. The bridge is on its way to be finished nevertheless, and tension is running high.

However, they are not attacked for several days. Kakashi starts to think they won’t be, that Gato will move out of the area without further trouble.

Of course, with only one day left on the ultimatum Kakashi left Gato with, they arrive at the building site set into a mist so dense it appears almost solid.

Kakashi motions Naruto to start a defensive formation — curiously, Naruto is still the only one of his cute little students to understand his ANBU signs. Sakura knows barely more than the Academy Basics, and the more merchant-based general Konoha signs, and Sasuke can fluently sign the old Uchiha Police codes, but it’s a hit-and-miss with the ANBU codes, though his general Konoha is decent. Naruto knows swearwords in all the languages, even the spoken ones.  They are fairly quick on their feet, his genin.

The mist is pervasive (laced with a genjutsu, perhaps) and inhibits natural chakra sensing.

The first two appearances by Zabuza are neatly dispatched by Sasuke — water clones, and then Kakashi looses focus of the battle; because Zabuza’s fake-hunter apprentice has a bloodline talent. 

It leaves frightfully obvious why Zabuza had left just after the bloodline purges, maybe even why he is trying to get back home. It also makes frightfully obvious that the best case scenario for them would be leaving without any of their enemies alive — this wasn’t about a mission anymore, it was about leaving no leaks and rumours behind.

Because if Kiri found out that Zabuza had kidnapped/rescued a bloodline purge…

Kakashi is caught wrong-footed again, is left fighting for his life against an opponent he should be able to defeat easily. He never before had the impression that over-working himself was such an impediment towards his fighting ability. It was just stress, after all.

His genin rescue him from his lapse of judgement, and battle the apprentice to the best of their abilities. Sasuke develops his Sharingan. Paying attention to his students means he pays less to Zabuza, but they are evenly matched.

In the distance, he can feel a troop of thugs and Samurai approaching. Gato — he’s braver than Kakashi thought. Or maybe he just doesn’t know what he’s getting into.

Naruto briefly looses control of the fox.

There’s a minute in which Kakashi feels his heart shrivel up into bitesize pieces, but the chakra-absorbing mist has been blown away. He can’t exactly hear Sasuke breathing, but the chakra is flowing undisturbed. Maybe he is just kidding himself.

Yet when he arms his assassination technique, the Chidori, he aims for the non-fatal, but equally debilitating areas. It’s the least he can do when it seems like his enemies are showing more mercy than he is.

It’s just as well, because when the apprentice makes a last minute substitution, Kakashi makes a spilt second decision and changes the trajectory back to his original opponent. 

* * *

 

Kakashi strikes true.

* * *

 

Zabuza is laying on the ground. Kakashi may have aimed for the non-fatal areas, but his lightning technique was made to take out everything. (He doesn’t even know what he hit. This is what his nightmares are made of. Sasuke is lying on the ground, unmoving.)

There’s a loud sob behind him. (Naruto? The apprentice?)

Kakashi approaches gingerly. He didn’t hit full frontal. The entire left side of his body seems paralysed—brain damage? Zabuza is conscious.

"You better watch out for my apprentice, Hatake. You have an obligation now," Zabuza whispers with his last breath when he comes near.

"Ha ha ha!" Gato laughs blithely in the distance. He really has no idea what he’s getting into. Kakashi would pity him, if he wasn’t so despicable. "You were useless anyway! I can't believe you wanted so much money— too bad I didn't want to pay either way!" He gave a sign to his army of thugs and samurai. "Now prepare to die!"

With a helpless but angry cry, Haku jumps on the business man and pummels him into the ground with his bare hands. An uncontrolled splash of ice buries itself into the group of thugs and samurai, holding some of them in icelike structures, piercing others, and scaring the rest to kingdom come. Those who could, ran.

Kakashi has seen plenty of people even comrades die on his jutsu, and Zabuza is still coherent enough for a rescue effort. For fighting an A-rank missing nin, his genin are in perfect health. He crouches down next to Zabuza — his heartbeat is erratic.

"Sakura!" He bellows. "My bag, there's a summoning scroll. It says Pakkun. Activate the seal with about enough chakra for a full body henge."

He rips of some reasonably clean bandages, and presses them onto the slash wound that's still sluggishly bleeding.

"Sasuke. Get me the apprentice. He's water nature."

Sasuke shouts loudly for Haku - the apprentice's name?

Zabuza has his eyes closed, but he's still semi-conscious and complains with a low whine when Kakashi depresses his ribcage, "Why won't you let me die."

"You aren't going to die today, asshole." Pakkun says—finally he's here. 

"I'm already hallucinating, it can't be that far away," Zabuza coughs.

"Are you really sure, we want to save him?" Pakkun complains, but he's already been converting nature chakra into something they can introduce into Zabuza that won't kill him instantly and help him deal with the torrents of electricity Kakashi used to fry him from the inside.

"That doesn't look like medical chakra," Sakura says from the sidelines.

"It's not," sweat is pouring down his nose, and he'd really wish he had some more chakra to convert into water affinity, but he's no demon, and he left his fucking seal matrices at home because those are fucking heavy, but from now on he's going to be taking them on trips to the bathhouse.

Haku finally appears beside him quiet and pale like a ghost. "Zabuza?" he asks, and Kakashi is such a moron, and also a sucker for love stories or whatever, and he grits his teeth and bears down on holding Pakkun's sacrifice and Zabuza's body together.

"If you could—transfuse water chakra—"

Despite his rampage, Haku has enough chakra left for a great patch job and enough wits to himself to understand what Kakashi is doing. Zabuza is now unconscious, though, and Kakashi is pretty near fainting himself.

"Naruto," he calls, his visiongets spotty and turns black. "Get us to Tazuna's."

And he passes out again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Kakashi really does not get how the mentally traumatized one is also his most well-behaved student. Poor Kakashi.)
> 
> Beware. The following paragraphs contains opinions.  
> (1) People may have noticed that this is not the least bit canon compliant. That’s partly because fuck canon anyway, I want to do it my way; and the most obvious plotholes were left by executive meddling anyway, so.  
> (2) Recently, I heard a lot about how people are afraid to critique works? And like, if you don’t want to critique someone who creates in his free time something that’s free for you to enjoy, that’s really admirable of you. But if you want to help me create something better, and you point out spelling mistakes (I found one on my own in the summary a few days ago, and boy, was I embarrassed.) or other obvious mistakes and also tell me why they are mistakes, I would explicitly give you permission. (You don’t have to! There’s the perfectly all right method of pushing the back button!) Anyway. I know my writing can be a bit confused (I often am, when I reread) and if there’s something unclear I would really love clarification.  
> TL;DR : It’s perfectly fine to like stuff, and still think it could be better. Concrit is welcome! All things (aside from rude, unhelpful comments) are welcome! I love all of you!


	7. building bridges

Team 7 is on its way out of the village. They leave behind a slightly less fearful community, the rest of the instant noodles Sakura had found in one of Naruto's bottomless bags and promptly pitched a fit over, and the Great Bridge named after Naruto. Kakashi does not want to talk about it.

With a quick glance back at the villagers (and especially the 50 pound bag of Ramen noodles), Naruto asks, "Can we race back to Konoha?"

Sakura, who Kakashi had sent out to check the perimeter, jumps down from the tree tops as if she had a seventh sense for Naruto's Bad Ideas and throws a punch at his head.

Naruto ducks, avoids her hit, and loudly howls anyway. "Sakura! What did I do?"

She kicks him, misses again.

"Sensei?" Sasuke says calmly and uses the scuffle to ask the question that has been burning in his mind for obviously quite a while, "what's going to happen to Haku? And Zabuza, I guess."

Kakashi has long legs. Also, he had perfected the meandering stride, and Sasuke had to awkwardly jog just to keep up. He could just substitute himself with a random roadside log, and keep them running until they would arrive at Konoha. Sasuke would have forgotten his question by then.

"What do you think is going to happen to them?" Or obfuscating stupidity. That would maybe work, too.

The look Sasuke sends him is eviscerating. "They are missing nin, right? What's going to happen to them?"

Kakashi gets a cold flash. Of course this is about Itachi. And now, it's about the Kyuubi, too — although Sasuke might not know about it yet.

That was why Zabuza had asked if it was true that Naruto was the heir of Uzushio. (And Kakashi, the idiot, had said yes — and said yes again, when Zabuza had asked if they could call the whole affair Uzushio business. It wasn't set in stone, of course, or written into a seal, but now Kakashi felt _guilty_ for even thinking about telling his Kage. His Hokage, because that was his home. Is his home.)

"They aren't ours," Kakashi says, and has to swallow, "And Konohas relations with Kiri is precarious at best. They will not like hearing about this."

Sasuke is silent. Strangely enough, he is still keeping up and doesn't stumble over the uneven cobble stones.

Kakashi asks curiously, "Do you want to go back and capture them for the bounty? It's an A-rank."

"No!" Sasuke answers so quickly, he almost shouts. "Is that why people desert the village? Because the chance that somebody of a higher rank stumbles upon them is pretty low?" He asks furtively.

Further up, Sakura is chasing one of according to its chakra signature Narutos clone up the tree. The clone is doing a relatively good job (they are learning!) and only exploded one of the smaller branches with an uncontrolled chakra burst.

"No," Kakashi says, "that's not why people run away. People run away because they can't deal with trauma, or because they are chased by someone stronger. Because they can't deal with their life any longer. Or their village. Zabuza was trying to make a way to go back."

Sasuke is quiet again. The constant aura of doom that surrounds him is slightly denser than usual, and Kakashi lengthens his strides  —  maybe it's contagious? He already has the Uchiha bloodline.

"Did he really?" Sasuke asks. "Try a coup? Didn't you say he slaughtered his entire graduate class?" There's a moue of distaste on his face.

"Well," Kakashi says, and of course, it's his genin that wants to know about the best kept political secret of the decade. Asuma probably never had to deal with this shit. "Uzushio was destroyed, when Zabuza was four. Maybe five, I don't know, I wasn't born yet. But Zabuza was from Uzushio, and somehow his entire family ended up in the village that destroyed theirs. I don't know if they were brainwashed, joined willing before or after, but I do know that shinobi villages do not like outsiders. Also, Kiri never again made their academy students go through those bloody exams again."

"And Haku has a bloodline." Sakura says, and Kakashi had not noticed that Naruto and Sakura have stopped fooling around.

"What's that gotta do with anything?" Naruto wants to know, "Sasuke has one of those too, right?"

"Kiri had bloodline purges," Sasuke says, and his tiny cloud of doom comes forth like a soulsucking demon, "they killed everyone with a bloodline."

"Why'd they do that?"

"Because they feared that the powerful clans would oppress them," Sakura says. "They feared the bloodline shinobi."

Kakashi can figuratively see the light dawning on Sasuke. It hurts. 

"This is a nice camping spot," he declares and points vaguely into the woods. They look light and airy — a perfect spot to make his genin spar against each other. "I even saved some provisions," he says cheerfully and pulls out four more packages of instant noodles. Naruto cheers. There’s also chocolate ration bars.

Sasuke plops down onto the ground, and starts sharpening kunai. Conversation successfully derailed.

* * *

After a full night’s rest, he summons his puppies and makes them chase his other puppies all the way to Konoha.

Kakashi runs after them, and manages to advance his winning margin just so, that he can calmly stroll up to the chūnin guards at the gate.

It is a beautiful sunny day, and Kakashi would enjoy it much more, if the outer guard post wasn’t currently unmanned. None of his request for reinforcements seem to have arrived.

Even the chūnin at the gate are barely paying attention — they don’t appear to notice the genin making a murderous amount of noise, the most coming, surprisingly, from Sasuke. He seems like a cat person.

"Who is occupying the other guard station?" he asks Izumo who is on duty.

"Hello to you, too, taicho," Kotetsu grins, very relaxed and leaning against the gate.

There’s an ugly emotion in his gut he tries very hard to ignore. It’s funny how his ANBU persona had allowed him to express more of what he feels than now. 

"How was your first C-rank, since…—what? Were you twelve?" Izumo jokes.

On the one hand, he’s glad that they are able to joke. On the other, there were no reinforcements for his traumatised fresh-out-of-the-academy genin.

"We encountered enemy shinobi action," Kakashi smiles, the fury barely hidden.

Their faces fall.

The rage in his belly is hardly professional — he doesn’t know what he should be more upset about: that the chūnin can’t hear his fucking genin stampeding through the forest like 6-foot-tall fire forest leeches, or that none of his various reinforcement calls made it here. 

Mercilessly, he presses on, "We dealt with the first attack — and left them behind for the daily patrol. Have the Demon Brothers been brought in and their bounties claimed?"

Izumo and Kotetsu look at each other, then Kotetsu shrugs. "An ANBU patrol — the… you know," he says and signs, [root-hawk] 

Danzo. What kind of hand did that guy have in this?

Sasuke crashes loudly down a few branches in the immediate vicinity of the gate. Kakashi winces, but the chūnin both jerk abruptly.

"Sasuke! Don’t make me fall, you jerk!" It’s still three times quieter than usual which makes it twice as loud as normal conversation volume, and then Naruto falls directly on Sasuke. A few dogs jump on top, and it is disgustingly cute.

Sakura ambles down the tree, visibly exhausted, but with an elegance that seems very mocking after the performance of the boys.

Kakashi looks toward Izumo, and says drily, "That’s of course when we encountered Momochi Zabuza, A-Rank missing nin from Kirigakure."

"The Demon of the Bloody Mist?" Izumo yelps. "Fuck, man, talk about bad luck. Was the client someone that’s going to be missed?"

Kakashi looks at him. "We finished the mission," he says. "There’s now a bridge in Wave named after Naruto. We have all of the former contracts with the former business magnate of Gato, and a substantial amount of property deeds." A few seconds he enjoys their gobsmacked faces, then he adds, "Now send a red alert. The outer gate post isn’t occupied. It’s a shame you failed out of chakra detection. What kind of sensor are you?"

At that point, he herds his puppies into the village proper and heaves a sigh of relief. They survived enemy action: Now it was time to survive politics.

* * *

Kakashi notices the ANBU guard only after giving his mission statement to the Hokage. Maybe it’s because he feels safe, surrounded on the left by Genma in ANBU gear and Tenzō on his right.

It’s the swan mask that gives him away as Root. He retired that same swan mask himself. It was the first ANBU captain he trained and subsequently buried, on his own. The other ANBU guards don’t seem on edge to see her—it, the mask is always an it— so the infiltrator had to go through official channels.

"There is no need of a follow-up?" the Hokage asks. "Nothing happened that is of any significance to the current political climate?"

"No, sir," Kakashi says. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leaving Zabuza alive derailed my plans completely. Why do I do this to myself? I had a perfectly good outline.


	8. field work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been awhile since I updated. Hope you enjoy anyway!

The warm hand on his lower back wakes Kakashi from his stupor. He had left the Hokage’s office not visibly upset, and managed to do his usual patrol on Danzo’s various hide-outs without incident — but pretending he is fine had reached his limit when he came into the empty ANBU station to sit down and rest for a second. It didn't stay a second.

He’s not sure what he’s going to do, now.

"What’s up?" Gai, who the hand belongs to, asks. "The fire of youth not burning brightly?"

Kakashi groans.

"And you thought you could easily let go of your students," Gai smiles, and Kakashi’s stomach lurches. "I told you, you were going to grow attached and you didn’t believe me."

"—it’s not my students," Kakashi mumbles into his arms, and the warm hand feels so good on his back he almost forgets that he didn’t fulfil his duties to the Hokage. That he was such a failure he couldn’t even talk about how he was going to fail.

"The spying thing you’re trying to be quiet about getting to be too much?" Gai asks.

Kakashi shoots him a deadpan look. How Gai can still be so wrong after all the years that they have known each other is quite a miracle.

Gai laughs, "Sorry, my friend. I briefly forgot that you have been doing this for twenty years."

"12," Kakashi corrects grumpily, "I’m not that old."

"What’s with me, then — am I ancient?"

"If the shoe fits." Kakashi shrugs, and feels a tiny bit better having spread the misery around. This was still going to end in disaster. He heaves himself of the most comfortable chair in the ANBU kitchen. Gai lets his hand linger for a few more seconds like a warm ray of sunshine, then asks, "Anything I can do to help?"

It’s a kind offer, but Kakashi isn’t going to burden him with his thoughts on defecting — not when he’s even sure he _has_ thoughts of defecting (or more of them than he usually does, anyway) — and talks instead about the trials of his stupid but very cute genin.

* * *

Kakashi’s paranoid intuition tells him that the invasion planned by Sand, Sound’s first time at the Chuunin Exams, and Danzo’s creepy invasion are all connected.

Kakashi’s paranoid intuition tells him further, that Zabuza was planted in the way of the first mission with his genin. 

Kakashi’s paranoid intuition is to be taken with a grain of salt, and sometimes bullshits him in ways that aren’t to be trusted.

Kakashi is going to make his cute, tiny genin take part in the Chuunin Graduation Exams, because he’s been dropped on his head as a baby by the most obnoxious drunk person ever, and lost his sense of… responsibility, probably? He starts the long walk to the training ground, and doesn’t even remember to be late.

"Sensei!"

This is Naruto calling. It is incredibly shrill, and also: Kakashi can hear him all the way from Training Ground 7 to the Hokage Tower. 

They are growing on him, the little shits, and soon he might even get used to having a team again, but not before he’s entering them into the exams. Those are, if Tenzo is to be believed, going to kill them anyway, or if he’d rather trust Gai, going to split them up into the round troops. Kakashi is a little bit insulted, because his kids are masters in sensing recalcitrant teachers, can catch Tora within hours without any tracking jutsu, are able to beat the crap out of each other on treetops (well, Naruto and Sasuke are), and Sakura knows the ninja code forwards, backwards, sidewards and in cipher, and can remember more about shinobi history than Kakashi ever learned.

Like he said, they are growing on him.

"Do you all want to advance to chuunin rank?"

"YES!" Narouto shouts immediately. It is followed by an awkward pause, though, and Kakashi is glad Naruto is trying to think after he speaks, if he won’t do it before. "If you think we’re ready, of course," he says afterwards.

"They are soon, aren’t they?" Sasuke asks, pretending to be less enthused than his team member.

Sakura is the only one ringing her hands and looking worried. She’s definitely the brains of this outfit.

"If you all decide right now to join the exams, we could go on another training mission," Kakashi says, neatly side-stepping the question. For some reason, he doesn’t trick them about signing up alone. It’s maybe because he feels so fractured about his team himself, or maybe because stalking Danzo fucking sucks and he’d rather cut out his own eye then doubt his own superior officers, because where does it fucking end? 

"Oh man, this is great!" Naruto yells. "Only 6 months genin and already we’re going to get promoted!"

"Shut up, don’t you know you are only promoted if you get to the end!" shouts Sakura, matching Naruto’s noise level. It’s quite impressive.

Soon enough Kakashi is too distracted to wallow in his self-pity, planning the most gruelling training mission ever. 

* * *

"Weeding!" Sasuke says with the most incredulous tone, once they have arrived at the field just outside the village.

All three of them are standing in the middle of the muddy water of the rice field — it may be buckwheat instead, it’s been a long time since Kakashi had to do field work in the literal sense, and to be entirely honest, one green sprout looks much like the other. None of them have cottoned on to the idea that they could use their newly learned water walking skills to walk on top of the mud, and Kakashi has to sigh.

They aren’t noticing the ANBU doing drills not a half-mile away. Naruto is maybe acting slightly skittish, which bears looking into, but considering his normal energy levels, he’s probably just energetic.

Kakashi settles in with his book.

A few hours later Kakashi watches in fascinated awe, how precise Naruto manages to fling mud onto his target while maintaining his cover of picking weeds. It is glorious. Sasuke trying furiously to evade the mud balls while Sakura has finally figured out the trick to coating her fingers with chakra to avoid the mud.

Another gob of mud separates seemingly without outward sign from the field and launches itself at Sasuke, and manages to hit the middle of his face. The mud slowly drips down.

Before Sasuke can launch the fire ball he’s clearly preparing for, Kakashi calls out, "I can’t believe you are still not done!"

Sasuke’s plan of rebuttal is abandoned when he turns around, and Sakura falls into the mud forgetting to concentrate on her chakra— but Naruto has the calm routine of his "who, me?"-face when he looks at Kakashi down pat. 

"That’s not fair, sensei!" Sakura answers, when suddenly Tenzo drops out of the canopy onto the open field. He disregards the genin, signs [Sand has taken the jinchuuriki,] and leaves again. 

Kakashi glances at Naruto who was very much present and not taken by Sand, and then realizes that it’s Tenzo and he always conjugates wrong.

"Well," he says. Sand was planning a revolt with Danzo? That didn’t seem right. "Sakura— Please take your team to the mission desk to fulfill your mission. If you encounter any shinobi from different villages, please don’t attack them, they are here for the Chuunin exams." They acknowledge him with a nod, and so he jumps into the trees.

There, he thinks about Naruto, and Sasuke, and how they will behave, and summons Pakkun to watch over them. Then, he leaves again.

* * *

"I have no idea how it happened," Shikaku tells Kakashi once he arrives at the briefing room. It’s empty of everyone else, except for Tenzo’s chakra signature in the ceiling. "But apparently he’s been registered for quite awhile. In fact, his application was one of the first to be approved."

Kakashi notices the absence of Danzo — it looked like he wasn’t the only one with suspicions against the old war hawk. But now that it seemed so apparent, Kakashi was doubting himself— would Danzo really make his involvement so blatantly obvious?

"Huh," Kakashi exhales, "who registered him?"

"The Hokage’s office, according to all due process."

"No extra note? No side-margin?" Kakashi asks.

Shikaku turns back to his documents "— according to section 5, paragraph… wait, this is a Root call-sign."

Then again, maybe Danzo made his involvement so blatantly obvious as to hide his underlying involvement.

"You don’t think Danzo is involved in this, do you?" Shikaku asks, obviously realizing Kakashi’s thread of thought.

"No," Kakashi admits with a sigh. "I don’t. Anymore."

"But who would have known all of the ANBU signs — and their Root counterparts—"

Tenzo looses brief control of his suppressed chakra, and Kakashi smiles bitterly. "It’s Orochimaru," he says.

Shikaku freezes. Then, he delicately folds the documents together, while staring into nothing, putting pieces together. "We have to tell the Hokage," he says.

"Sure," Kakashi says, and inches closer to the door. "Since it was your idea, how about you do it? I’m going to look for my genin!" He shouts the last bit through the closed door, and then shunshins away before he can be called back.

Contingency plans for Orochimaru’s eventual invasion have already been drawn up by paranoid members of the intelligence department, just like the plans for an eventual hostile take-over by Danzo (and Kakashi took no small part in it)but Kakashi is the first to admit that he isn’t at his physical best. He’ll play the ignorant decoy, and let Shikaku deal with the big stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder if Danzo is actually working with Orochimaru pretending not to be working for Orochimaru pretending to be working for Orochimaru pretending to work for Akatsuki. Poor Kakashi :D


	9. keep on fighting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is Orochimaru planning an invasion? Is it Grass planning an invasion? Is Danzou trying to become Hokage again? Who even knows, certainly not Kakashi, who will fall flat on his face again if he doesn't sleep sometimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have still not arrived at the actual part I wanted to tell, which was Uzushio. Oh well, hope you enjoy anyway.

Kakashi lands on the balls of his feet in front of the memorial stone, close to over-balancing because he got worked up and now his chakra is fluctuating dangerously again. Great, just what he needed. He should not have used any jutsu at all, but where would he be if he was always sensible?

When he looks up, it’s the chiseled name of Uchiha Obito that catches his eye. The reminder roots him to the ground. _”They aren’t ready!”_ The voice of the chuunin academy teacher reverberates in his head, red in the face because he’s slightly desperate and very mad. _“They are too young! They are fresh out of the academy!”_

Kakashi understands him, even while he disagrees: He’s been their teacher for the past few months, and their capabilities have grown leaps and bounds. He considers that the chuunin probably knows, that Team 7 probably told their old teacher what their new sensei had been doing with them — but his kids are also the opposite of subtle. The chuunin teacher might not have believed them, might’ve thought they were overconfident, exaggerating their own capabilities. Because Team 7 is ready. He thinks he proved that sufficiently by making them do a Border run in three days, telling them the average was two. It was barely that for ANBU squads, regular chuunin teams usually took the whole week. 

Kakashi pauses, considers. Maybe regular shinobi took it as a taunt? Or a cover-up. And both Naruto and Sasuke already have a reputation. He should have thought about the consequences first, before he drilled into them the stamina of ANBUs. It is very hard to hold them back, though, even Sakura is a power to be reckoned with; and he would absolutely hate, despise, holding them back in the interests of politics.

He looks to the right, further down, where there’s sensei. He doesn’t want his team to be caught of guard— or be too slow in a moment of desperation, ever. He knows most people don’t have value for his team, don’t realise what kind of knowledge there is in his three puppies fresh out of the academy— the only one they reluctantly fear and admire is the Uchiha. What they fear about Naruto isn’t him, it’s the kyuubi, and what they fear about the girl is nothing at all. They’ll never see them coming.

Kakashi looks into the sky, so that the water can’t run down his cheeks and mess up his mask. The sky is blue and clear, and he does not want— he can’t— if they continue being genin when the war breaks out, he will have to abandon them. Hopefully, they will make it through the exams. He can’t think about what he’ll do to keep them in sight, otherwise.

The Root operative that had been following him since his confrontation with the academy teacher, leaves, finally. Kakashi breathes in, breathes out — and then checks his chakra levels. The meditating had been sufficient. He creates a bunshin that follows the operative out. He’s got that much chakra to spare, hopefully.

There’s no need to let up on Danzo, just because Orochimaru is the more likely candidate on planning an invasion. Maybe he’ll wait and swoop in once everyone is distracted with fighting the obvious enemy. 

Then, Kakashi remembers his actual mission from the Hokage, curses, because this means his chakra is going towards purposes other than healing again, and creates yet another bunshin to follow around Danzo, and redirects his attention to the delegation from the Kazekage.

* * *

Kakashi is busy shovelling food into his starved stomach in the ANBU cantina— the Hokage’s mission meant shadowing the Sand delegation upon their arrival in Konoha, and they hadn't given him time to eat — when Hayate drops in on him. It’s a split-second decision to not pull any kunai. Hayate nudges his shoulders, then drops into an open seat at the table.

"Can you tell me what you did with your genin?" Hayate asks without further ado. "I need to do the same thing to my chuunin squad." With a fluid gesture his katana falls down next to Kakashi's bowl of rice and beans. It is dripping with a red viscous substance.

Kakashi swallows, then sniffs the air. "What were you doing with that poor katana?" he asks. It’s not blood, even though that would be the simpler explanation by far.

"Whoops," Hayate says, and picks up the katana with a disgusted grimace. The viscous fluid seems really rather sticky. Kakashi eats another couple of spoons full of beans while he waits for the explanation. "I was in T&I, Ibiki needed someone for intimidation."

Kakashi arches his visible eyebrow. "And they sent _you_?"

"I can be intimidating!" Hayate protests, immediately insulted. It only manages to underline Kakashi’s point. "Anyway. Your brats met Sand’s jinchuuriki, and almost started a fight in the middle of the village."

"So?" Kakashi says, and shovels another handful of rice into his mouth. If there really was an emergency situation, Hayate wouldn’t sit so calmly in his chair. "They didn’t, obviously."

"Still," Hayate says. "You had them like, what? Three months? How did you make them learn the entire set of ANBU handsigns? I was—" he pauses, searching for an appropriate word, and coughs instead. After a while, he continues with, "—Surprised, when your girl started cussing me out for my late response."

Kakashi follows the rice with plenty of beans. Testament to Hayate’s long standing acquaintance with Kakashi — he doesn’t stare at the food vanishing behind a black mask with no indication of his mouth.

"Not one peep out of her mouth, too. You couldn’t really tell she was holding two conversations at once, at all."

Kakashi shrugs. "Fast learners." He doesn’t tell Hayate that he suspects Sakura is just as mentally unbalanced as his other two puppies— and he probably doesn’t want to know either. "What’d they do to the Sand delegation?"

"Oh, it went peacefully," Hatake waved his hand. "They just got the attention of the Kazekage’s children. They are quite vicious. Have a confirmed kill count higher than you."

Kakashi snorts. 

"Everyone has a higher confirmed kill count than taichou," Tenzou says, and vaults over the window sill. "He’s an undercover operative, how high do you think they want his official kill count to be?"

"It’s at three, right?" Hayate asks.

Why is that a thing he needs to know? "Most of my confirmed kills are Konoha ninja," Kakashi says through his beans and rice.

"Oh," Hayate says, and leaves it at that.

There’s silence in the kitchen, as Kakashi empties the last of his bowl.

"Well," Kakashi says, "this was terrific. Let’s do it again sometime." He throws his bowl with precision onto the precariously balanced tower of dishes sitting in the sink — the person who makes it fall is the person responsible for doing the dishes, and in the last fifteen years, Kakashi had to do the dishes just once. The tower wobbles a bit, but ultimately holds.

"Wait, taichou!" Tenzou calls after him, and then follows him out of the window. "Have you seen the roster for the chuunin exams?"

Kakashi has not. Kakashi cares not. Kakashi wants to go hide on top of the Memorial and never come out again, but instead he sighs and turns to Tenzou. "No," he says. "What about it?"

"You are not on it," Tenzou says. Kakashi musters him. He looks earnest as always, probably the only ANBU to wear his uniform straightened (and probably the only ANBU to know where their official iron was).

"I have a team entering."

Wordlessly, Tenzou pulls a scroll out of his breast pocket and hands it to Kakashi. It’s an order recalling every de-activated ANBU for duty. It is ingenious. It doesn’t fit into either Sarutobi’s or Danzo’s usual action plans. He scans it, quickly. There’s no loopholes to exploit.

"That bastard," he says, feeling like kissing Shikaku. "That complete and utter shithead."

"Will it get you on the roster?" 

"No, but it’ll be even better." Tenzou looks confused, so Kakashi deigns to explain, "I have a team entering, I can’t be seen influencing the outcome by running checks— I can, however, pursue an intruder, which is really all I need."

Tenzou is quiet. Then, he says, "I thought you wanted to watch over your puppies."

Kakashi grins at him. "Like I was watching over you the entire time during training?" Tenzou looks away at that, but Kakashi is relentless, "You were even younger, if I recall. Had more purposeful training, perhaps, but they’ve been on their own for a long time, you shouldn’t underestimate either Naruto or Sasuke."

"The girl, then," Tenzou says.

"Nah," Kakashi says. "I thought I taught you better than this, really. Underestimating a girl? No, Sakura has— she knows more than I do about regulations and history and how your brain works than I do, and I have a fucking Sharingan. Her weaknesses are purely physical, and Sasuke. She won’t have a problem against a normal genin. If I could only make sure that they will only meet normal genin…" He drifts off. "Have you told Anko," he asks flatly.

"She’s proctoring the exam," Tenzou says.

It would be the perfect answer, if Kakashi hadn’t taught him exactly these kind of evading techniques. He waits him out. Tenzou shifts. 

"No, I haven’t told her. She’d…freak out about it."

"Yes," Kakashi says patiently, "and you would want her to freak out when you can be there to mitigate the results, not in the middle of a possible invasion, where freaking out and running out to kill him while make her dead." He heavily implies the ' _Idiot_ ' but doesn’t say it out loud. Then, as a natural conversation stopper, he pulls out his brightly orange book of infinite wisdom, and ignores everything around him.

* * *

The day of the chuunin exam dawns, and Kakashi is at the gate triple-checking the visitors, even though he has a feeling that nobody will be coming through the front door. He can’t really quantify the feeling, after all.

"Do you really think someone will try to invade Konoha during this shit?" Kotetsu asks. He gets hit by Izumo in reply, which Kakashi will take as an appropriate answer.

"You know I was wondering the same thing, actually," Kakashi says, and looks at the trade delegation from the Daimyou of Sand, and there’s more people there than from the entire village of Grass even though it’s their first time competing in a chuunin exam, and this should be an event. "You know what, I think I forgot Anko’s bento in the oven!" and he vanishes before anyone can complain.

He does get Anko a bento, because it makes the perfect excuse, and also is just plain funny. Anko is in the room with the delegates, watching over the exam from outside, and it makes it even better. He meanders into the room as if butter won’t melt in his mouth, holding out his wrapped bento box. "You forgot lunch at home, honey," he says, and abruptly, there is a palpable silence.

Anko stares at him, frozen in perplexed amazement.

He jingles the box, and watches the Grass delegation. There’s three people there. The jounin sensei, and two other people. Kakashi doesn’t recognise them. It’s all sorts of suspicious, and he can’t believe nobody noticed. 

Ibiki is in the exam room, though, and Anko doesn’t know shit about politics. Shikaku is managing the jounin commander duties. Even so, this is blatantly obvious. To obvious for a trap?

Kakashi bows before the delegates, "Very sorry to interrupt."

Danzou snorts, and the Hokage looks amused. Anko less so. He manages to sign a quick, "Mission compromised, play along," and hopes there’s no other ANBU in the room with knowledge of that particular slang sign.

"Of course," Anko says grouchily, out loud, and takes the offered bento box. When he extends his chakra senses, she feels prickly. 

The Grass delegation is masking their chakra, which is only sensible in a foreign village and the first sign that they know what they are doing. Kakashi doesn’t give up yet, though. He knows that Orochimaru—possibly Danzou, too—have long been pushing the boundaries of what is possible. So he does, too. He touches the masked chakra with refined white chakra, to get a sense of what is masked. None of them have particular dense chakra, very unimpressive for the only representatives for a village this new, one that manages to contain a jinchuuriki if Jiraiya’s accounts were to believed.

It’s more and more likely that the genin Grass has sent are not what they seem to be. He apologises again for the interruption, blaming his sense of time, and expressing the hope that the foreign representatives won’t look down on Konoha for having such a flakey jounin — it flusters especially the Sand delegation, who have had the most dealings with Kakashi the Friend-Killer, as he’s known in some of the Bingo books.

Anko follows him out of the room.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" she tells him, angrily.

"Mah, mah," he says, "I was only bringing the bento I swear!" Meanwhile, he is signing— _'Grass delegation possibly compromised,'_ so that potential listeners can’t hear.

Anko pauses, then continues with a less believable anger, "I told you to not bother me when I’m working!" It’s underscored with, _'Continue mission?'_

_'Do not engage with enemy,'_ Kakashi replies, and says out loud, "But I missed you, honeyboo."

Anko glares at him, and hisses, "I’m working now, but I’ll take it out of your hide later."

"Is that a threat or a promise?" Kakashi asks, and winks with his uncovered eye. _'Beware the snakes.'_

Anko rolls her eyes, cracks her knuckles, and goes back in to kow-tow the officials before leaving to proctor the exam. Kakashi loiters around the entrance some more, trying to decide if it’s worth it to go back in and inform the Hokage of his suspicions, but he has no solid evidence, only circumstantial clues, certainly nothing on which to build an attack.

He checks his chakra, and it is very low—certainly not enough to go toe to toe with Orochimaru of the Sannin. He will need some sort of boost towards that. Contemplating the likelihood of the ANBU medical centre refusing him any sort of soldier pill, he pauses, and then decides to run to the Akimichi places. He knows some of them, and can probably convince them of his dire need than he can the general shinobi hospital.

* * *

"This is a terrible plan," Pakkun grumbles. Kakashi has acquired his soldier pills, and he’ll be running on fumes, but hopefully they’ll last until his students are out of the trice-cursed exam. He doesn’t disagree with his summon. It is indeed a terrible plan.

"Do you have a better one," Kakashi says, but only because it is expected of him. 

Pakkun snuffles instead of replying properly. "If they find out, you contacted your genin, they will be disqualified for the next one, too."

Kakashi shrugs. He doubts the Hokage —or Danzo— will let him keep impressional youths for that long. He thinks the plan was always to get them for six months, and then have someone else take all the credit for their individual talents. Neither of his puppies will ever fit into a proper team dynamic. They do fit into his, so maybe the Hokage banked on him growing attached. "The next exams will be held in Kiri anyway. There’s no way they’ll let me go there." Or the nine-tailed fox, for that matter.

Pakkun grunts. They continue watching the premises of the exam— plenty of dejected looking teams are already leaving, but there’s no sign of orange, yet.

"Here they come," Kakashi says, and nudges his dog summon forward. Hopefully, his genin will get the message. Then, he whips out his trusty bright orange book, and heads to a populated area to get himself any alibi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bets on when the next chapter will be up? (hysterical laughter) I'm so sorry!


	10. Catching the Vermin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi can't believe it. There really is an invasion attempt during the exam. Who'd have thought?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because my outline lied to me, and I feel like a poser posting 7k as one chapter, this chapter is split in two. I hope you enjoy it!

Kakashi is leaning on the outside of Training Ground 44’s barrier, trying to look inconspicuous and failing, like he has a purpose here but wants to look like he’s just chilling— Guardian duty, basically. He’s not on the roster, but few people would dare question what he’s doing even just hanging about, and all of those are busy with other things.

Except when he turns, there happens to be a grey, shaggy looking person, ambling about with a lazy gait, dressed like a priest, or maybe a roving scholar. It just so happens that Kakashi is very familiar with this figure, even if the warts are new. Kakashi should have learned long ago not to challenge fate, because that is one of those people who can question why he’s hanging about.

"You took your sweet time coming," Kakashi greets him. It may not be the smartest thing to say to someone for whom you have the greatest respect, even if he left you dealing with the village shit and rambled across the nations, but Kakashi sure knows how to hold a grudge. And not even the delicate literature he sends can help him there.

"No women, a lot of politics… remind me again why I’m even here?" the man groans and looks to the sky. "Even the mixed bath was closed!"

Kakashi disengages from the wall he was leaning on, pops his shoulders. "I don’t know," he says. "You tell me. Why are you here?"

Jiraiya deflates. "Okay, okay, I get it, this is important, no joking."

"Joking is fine," Kakashi says. "Except there really is someone planning an invasion, or at least a toppling of Sarutobi, and Konoha needs someone with chakra reserves to take over."

Jiraiya musters him. "You don’t look too bad," he says, trying to imply that Kakashi should do so.

He says that to Kakashi, who has been wearing masks as far back as he can remember, because he does have the Uzushio seals on him. To Kakashi, who had been implanted a Sharingan, an always activated Sharingan, and if he didn’t have chakra reserves the size of a toad he’d have been dead a hundred times over. The sentence deserves no reply. He hopes Jiraiya is still sharp enough to decipher blank stares, because there’s absolute no way Kakashi is going to speak about this deplorable situation out loud.

"I did send out a message to my godmother," Kakashi says instead. "But I doubt she’s coming."

Jiraiya sighs. It’s a deep sigh, and it sounds exactly like Kakashi feels about the entire situation, so there’s no use in saying anything. "Well," Jiraiya says after the lengthy pause. "I am here. Where’s the fire?"

"No idea," Kakashi replies immediately, because he hasn’t checked in with the office in two days, because Shikaku would give him work to do, and Kakashi just needs to focus for a fucking minute but everyone keeps interrupting him, and if there ever was a village he would voluntarily lead it would be fucking Uzushio, where he could select his members, and not have to deal with Danzo, and Orochimaru and the entire inherited sins of the people. Then again, Uzushio brings its own problems, its own responsibilities, and Kakashi can’t even take care of three genin without utterly fucking it up. "You might want to get to Shikaku on that."

"I thought you were waiting here for me," Jiraiya says, slightly suspicious.

Kakashi, who knows he’s a clone, and that his original is trying to infiltrate the exam that is happening right now, says, "I’m not allowed to join the ANBU surveillance of the Chuunin exam." He shuffles from foot to foot and stares vacantly into the direction of the school building in which it is held.

For some unfathomable reason, Jiraiya buys the truly shitty excuse. Kakashi despairs quietly about how deep his own reputation has fallen, but can’t really do anything about it, since the misunderstanding is in his favour. The real Kakashi better appreciate his sacrifice.

* * *

 

Since Jiraiya has made him, and there’s no beating that sort of alibi, he wanders off to buy another batch of sealing supplies, yet another weapon to add to his growing arsenal, and a nice thick anatomical book about killing people, and tries to pretend he doesn’t know what he’s going to do with them. Asuma and Kurenai are out on a date, and Kakashi hopes he can get away with not noticing them. Then, he meanders through the marketplace to get ingredients for curry.

When Tenzō drops down next to him while he’s paying for cabbage, he almost suspects his disguise has been discovered and he will be invited in for questioning.

"I’m not feeding you," Kakashi says. Tenzō is wearing his uniform, of course. Kakashi has never seen him out of uniform yet. He doubts Tenzō even owns anything that doesn't look like a uniform. Once, for his birthday, Kakashi bought him a bandana, and he wore it exactly once. 

Tenzō folds his hands behind his back, and ignores what comes out of Kakashi’s mouth, since it’s usually lies and slander anyway.

Kakashi doesn’t wait until whatever he’s pondering over, comes out of his mouth. Also, the mirror one of his fellow clones put up has darkened, which means his purpose is now to get the stuff his clones collected to the original Kakashi.

"Please tell me you haven’t infiltrated the exam," Tenzō murmurs quietly. He has followed after, which means Kakashi needs to get rid of him somehow, and that is unfortunate.

"I haven’t infiltrated the exam," he tells Tenzō placidly. It’s not even technically untrue, although if the truth has a qualifier, it’s a lie.

Tenzō’s strides don’t falter. Kakashi is coming closer and closer to the secret drop-off. The chances that his kouhai will let him get away clean, are miniscule. Fuck it, Tenzō may disapprove, but he wouldn’t squeal for anyone but Gai anyway.

Nobody else is checking in on him; at least by what he can tell from the chakra around him, and so he takes the hidden turn of the alleyway, dragging Tenzō with him. He’s quick onhis feet as always, following along with him like a good shinobi. He’s signing a question, and "Enemy shinobi," but Kakashi shakes his head.

There’s the deposit with the bags, just like original Kakashi wanted, on top of a sealing roll that he doesn’t expect, but takes along with him anyway. He knows there is at least one other clone running around, preparing for the worst, because that's about the amount of chakra a soldier pill would give him.

"What are you doing?" Tenzō says out loud.

"Making sure that my cute genin are prepared for their exam," Kakashi says, "like any good teacher should."

There’s a heartbeat in which he thinks Tenzō is going to question him, in which he thinks that Tenzō might not be on the same wavelength as him. There's a reason they're such a devastating assassination team, and it isn't their good looks.

"…okay. Can I help?" Tenzō says. He's always down with Kakashi's more illegal operations. Sometimes, Kakashi feels guilty about using the fact that he saved him from eternal experimentation against him, but he won't stop doing it anyway.

"No," Kakashi says immediately, then reconsiders. "Maybe. No, it’s better if you don’t get mixed up in it."

"With all due respect, taichō," Tenzō begins, and if it starts like that, nothing good was going to follow. Kakashi seals the three bags, one for each of his genin and customised to their specialities, inside a transport seal. "—but who was the one who insisted, time and time again, that Konoha’s strength lay in its teamwork, on bonds that would last for longer than a lifetime?"

Kakashi scoffs. "And you believed in that kind of hooky?"

"Of course I did," Tenzō answers, and it takes the wind out of his sails. Tenzō, who was grown in a lab, and who has a hard time adjusting to ordinary relationships, to trust and reciprocity. "And so do you, and I don’t know why you keep running away from your friends when there’s a crisis. I am here to help."

Kakashi doesn’t look at him, stares into the opposite direction so that he doesn’t have to look at Tenzō and his face, and possibly letting an emotion or two escape. He says, "Fine," because he knows when he’s been beaten, and then adds, "we’re going to meet with original me in front of the academy."

Thankfully, Tenzō doesn’t mention how careless Kakashi is being with that, and just follows like the good subordinate he isn’t.

* * *

 

"Tenzō," Kakashi says, surprised, and then his mind is flooded with yet another set of memories. While he’s not surprised Tenzō is present anymore, he shots him a dark glare, expressing his feelings about being defeated with the same skills he had taught him. "—no matter. Anko is waiting."

He takes the transportation seal, and then slouches over to the entrance of training ground 44. Tenzō follows after, just in case.

There’s a bunch of genin waiting — most of them look around teenage, and their chakra feels somehow less. Naruto, jinchuuriki that he is, shines like a beacon, almost blindingly bright. His metaphysical appearance is only reinforced by his actual clothes, the bright orange jumpsuit. Next to him, the Uchiha looks like a soul-sucking black darkness. It’s appropriate, if slightly funny. Sakura seems normal, if slightly girly—and that’s a warning sign if there’s any. The normal looking ones always end up in assassination. Kakashi would know. Though perhaps, it’s because he has only trained specialised forces. Perhaps there’s a totally normal looking division in the greater shinobi work force that he can’t think of at the moment where each and every one of them looks very unremarkable. Considering they spent most of their time lurking in places one shouldn't see them, there's a lot of variety in how a ninja looks.

Anko had given him five minutes to talk to his genin. She said she was going to watch him the entire time, but that was what he had been using the clones for.

Naruto is telling him about the exam, very excited about being tricked in a psychological battle with Ibiki, which he won, of course. Sasuke looks unimpressed. Sakura is worrying her hands in a nervous gesture she should be losing before an enemy could pick up on it. Kakashi grins at them. They’ll be alright, he’ll make sure. He opens his transportation seal, and takes out the three packed bundles. He gives the one with sealing supplies and ramen noodles to Sasuke, the big, fat medical text to Naruto, and the one with a bo stick to Sakura — either they’ll figure it out, or Naruto will brain someone with the book. Either way, it will be entertaining. And probably helpful.

"You packed us bags! Sensei, you’re the best!" Naruto shouts, and Sasuke elbows him into the side.

"Yes, thank you, sensei!" Sakura shouts over him, instead. "You shouldn’t have congratulate for managing to pass the first part!" She tries to telepathically convey to Naruto why shouting at this juncture is a bad idea, and will only bring attention to their not-technically cheating. Kakashi would know, he _asked_. They manage to focus the attention of everyone around on just the two of them. It would be sad, if Kakashi hadn’t planned for exactly that— on his signal Tenzō sneaks into the entrance of the Forest of Death, where he would follow Bisuke and help him in the event that he wouldn’t manage to defeat a genin team on his own.

Kakashi watches his genin squabble. It shouldn’t be so comforting to see them bicker. He can’t seem to shake his feelings about the Sand genin — children of the Kazekage so their chakra reservoirs should not be a surprise, but there’s something _off_ about the youngest.

It’s paranoia, he tells himself. The other teams feel weird too, and they can’t all be infiltrators, can they? 

* * *

 

He’s a fretting mess of contradictions. Sarutobi smiles benevolently, pats his knees in a gesture that is meant to be comforting. The diplomats from the hidden villages and the political powers of the continent are surrounding them. Kakashi takes out his trusty book of porn, and covertly scans over the lines, looking like he’s reading while he’s trying to smother his chakra with calm collectiveness.

Of course, that’s when Bisuke’s chakra spikes. Short after, there’s a quick burst of Tenzō—then Tenzō is gone entirely. Kakashi, who has his chakra blanketed, stands up fluidly. The Hokage doesn’t look worried, which either means he wasn’t focusing on the area of the exam and hasn’t noticed, or… no, Kakashi is blanking on a sufficient explanation. Either way, it’s not good to show your leader’s failures in front of your enemies.

And none of the other attending diplomats have moved a muscle, so they should be ignorant, too. He’s right, though. He can tell that his genin, the people he is responsible for, are in trouble. He’s standing up, amidst the government officials and legendary shinobi, who are old. Sarutobi would want him to safe his people, if he could, he knows that. And so what he says is, "Bathroom!" urgently and quickly, and rushes out of the room.

He runs into Shikaku at the doorway, who pats his shoulder and then shuffles into the room he just came from. Kakashi takes it as an obvious approval, and hurries down the watchtower, where Anko is guarding the entrance.

She’s vibrating in her sandals, trying to decide between staying for her job and going in to hunt for whoever that was—she felt it too.

When she sees Kakashi she says, between pressed teeth, "That’s Orochimaru."

"You sure?" Kakashi asks her, because while he feels the same, there’s no obvious reason, and if they’re that sure, they should be sounding an alarm, not going after him. He’s a Sannin, and a monster. The chances of taking him down without collateral are minuscule, and in this case, the collateral are genin. Depending on which genin, also any of the diplomatic agreements of the last twenty years.

Anko doesn’t consider that, isn’t trained to consider that, but she pauses, whips her head back and forth like a snake about to strike and then says, "Eighty-twenty, feels more like Ninety-Ten. It’s Orochimaru." It's a conservative estimate, if Anko says it like that.

Kakashi’s suspicion deepens. By all measure, the chances of this happening without at least one man on the inside is suspiciously low. Their security measures were beyond compromised. "Call for back-up from the ANBU, broadcast an emergency shutdown on all channels except the watchtower." The mask he grabbed from the armoury is Snake, which is appropriate. He dons it.

"But—" Anko starts to protest.

"Your summons will be useless against this particular enemy," Kakashi explains, quickly, unsealing the sword he doesn’t like to use. "No offence. They’re better used for communication." He doesn’t wait for Anko to follow, before storming the entrance. She’s right behind him even so. The time it takes them to cross the distance to the genin, to Tenzō and Bisuke, feels like hours. And then, suddenly, there’s this overwhelming feel of rotten chakra permeating the air. They must have passed a chakra barrier, because there’s no way this type of chakra would have passed any sensor halfway decent. Anko grips her kunai tighter, and confirms the unnecessary. "It’s him."

She rushes forward, opening her shirt until the seal—the dreaded Curse Mark—is starkly visible against her white skin. She’s terrifying, her hair flying behind her like an unhinged spirit. Her rage is a defining factor why the village won’t promote her, but it can be very useful in intimidation.

Kakashi slinks into the shadow of the trees, hiding behind his loud partner. And then he can see Tenzō, holding back a Sannin with two blocks of wood growing out of the ground. Sakura is dragging Sasuke away from the fight, or trying to, at least.

There’s a giant snake dragging their body between the trees, and Naruto is nowhere to be seen.

"Well, well, well." Orochimaru says. He’s very casually dismissive considering Tenzō currently has him pinned. "If it isn’t my little apprentice. Why, if this isn't a nice meeting of freaks."

With a wild cry, Anko launches herself at him. She misses; Orochimaru winding himself out of her reach and the two stakes pinning him like a spineless jelly monster.

Then, the snake explodes, into hundreds and thousands of Narutos, splattering blood and guts across the clearing. "Woo! Disgusting!" a cacophony of Narutos shout, and then, "Bastard, are you okay?"

Sasuke seems alright, but his mental state can be very deceptive. Sakura is now trying to drag two uncooperative boys out of the firing line, and when they get out of here, Kakashi’s going to have her weight-train since she’s the only reasonable person here, and clearly needs it. If Sakura is failing, then how is he supposed to get his genin out of there without alerting Orochimaru of his presence?

Orochimaru is preparing a wind jutsu, he knows this one intimately—Wind Tunnel, very effective, but obscures the field for a few precious seconds. So when the devastating jutsu breezes across the terrain, he crosses over the field to his genin, grabs them by the nape of their uniforms and shuffles them into the shadows of the trees.

"Kakashi!" Naruto yells, muffled through his arm. "Are you helping us cheat?"

"This is ANBU Snake.We are here to contain a threat that infiltrated the exam," Kakashi tells him cheerfully, because he’s absolutely helping his genin cheat, just like any good teacher should. "You should continue on your way to the tower. Do you still have the scroll?"

Sasuke is the one who nods.

"Then don’t loose any more time and get your second one," Kakashi says.

Sasuke looks infuriated, as if he’s going to protest about this callous disregard for what they’ve been through. Later on, Kakashi might tell them he’s proud they stood their ground against a Sannin. Now, he wants them _gone_.

Sakura nods, and at least she’s being reasonable about this. Kakashi feels the fight getting more heated behind him, and so he pushes them into the direction of the tower. "Go," he says, and wonder over wonder, they do exactly as he tells them to. He turns back around, and can only watch Orochimaru blast apart Tenzō’s woodworking. Anko is pushed back, lands flat on her back. She doesn’t get up immediately.

Kakashi runs through techniques that were ineffective against Orochimaru the last time. There’s a short list of effective weapons against a master of all elements, but now he has the element of surprise on his side—and two well-trained teammates. Lightning element, it is. The crackling, wild energy can be hidden easily by Anko’s fury and Tenzo’s wood chakra, and best of all: it’s effective. He prepares the handsigns for Raikiri, the effect greater with precise and ritualistic preparation.

Anko was still on the ground, but appeared to summon something — Kakashi could only hopw she knew what she was doing, since her summoning contract was with the same snakes Orochimaru used. He, meanwhile, was a form shrouded in purple, abrasive chakra crawling over the ground. It almost look like he was scaling. Kakashi didn’t expect the Lightning Cutter to hit, and prepared himself to take the backlash of a misfire. With shinobi as experimental as Orochimaru, one never knew what kind of tricks he had up his sleeve.

Tenzō moves out of the direct line of fire. Kakashi feels the crackling energy rush down to his hands, and he prepares to strike.

Of course, that’s the moment Jiraiya drops from a tree right onto Orochimaru’s head. "Long time no see!" he says cheerfully as he rams his former teammate into the ground. Kakashi’s lightning strikes true, right into Orochimaru, who convulses on the ground. Part of the energy is transferred onto Jiraiya, with the result that his hair stands up straighter than before. From the way he’s still standing, he must be using some kind of nature chakra.

Orochimaru is lying on the ground, still.

"Is the fucker dead?" Anko asks.

Jiraiya, who has one foot on Orochimaru’s windpipe doesn’t seem inclined to believe so. He uses his foot to poke Orochimaru a bit. There’s no reaction.

"Well, this was more anticlimactic than I expected," Kakashi says, and then immediately knocks on wood, just to be safe.

"He’s still alive," Jiraiya says, "but I think he’s going to be out of commission for awhile. I don’t think Orochimaru _can_ die. Now, do any of you chucklefucks who decided to take on a Kage by yourself, have a sneaky way out of this forrest, preferably without alerting the officials of all hidden villages that we have found an enemy combatant in the middle of our Chuunin exam?"

Anko and Tenzō look at him immediately. Kakashi puts both his hands into his pockets, and slouches. He lets them stare at him another few, awkward moments, then says petulantly, "Gai and I once made a tunnel underneath a nest of Giant Leeches. As far as I know, it should be still there."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if there are inconsistencies. I'm trying to do a thorough pass through before I'm posting the next instalment of the series, but mistakes will happen. Hope you enjoyed it!


	11. The Prodigious Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Kakashi's genin return from their exam, the Hokage has this one task for Kakashi to fulfil.

Anko is still combing the remnants of leech guts out of her hair when the five of them descend upon Shikaku’s office. Tenzō looks prim and proper as always, not a hair out of place, and Jiraiya is dragging a body behind him like a sack of potatoes. It is, in fact, the Hatake family’s sack of potatoes — they needed something to disguise the identity of their prisoner lest anyone start a panic. Kakashi doesn’t know how he himself looks, but it’s reason enough that Shikaku sighs audibly and sits back down on his desk.

With a dramatic gesture of a Kabuki actor, Jiraiya reveals Orochimaru’s face. He’s gagged with one of Anko’s bandages because he used a water jutsu on Tenzō who was binding his hands, and Kakashi is expecting him to try one with his tears next, but it seems like even the fabled Orochimaru hasn’t crossed that boundary yet.Shikaku sighs, "What do you want me to do about this?" he asks Kakashi, who shrugs.

"Find out if he has allies, maybe." Kakashi says. "He most likely has allies," Tenzō says. "I'd say it's likely that we're talking about deep undercover people here, even--how long it's been, 10 years since his defection? And yet he must have had access to current security practises, or at least medical exemptions-- to get into the exam as genin from a different village. I think someone is going to be very surprised by a genin team making it to the exam."

"Deep undercover, huh," Jiraiya says, and eyes up Anko. Kakashi grits his teeth. It is a reasonable suspicion, from the point of someone who does not know Anko at all-- and so it gets Kakashi's hackles up. "Watch where you looking," he hisses.

Anko crosses her arms underneath her breasts. She's clearly--very clearly--not wearing a bra. Her boobs almost spill out of her top. This way, her boobs look ginormous. Kakashi looks to Shikaku, helplessly, who looks very bored by this interplay and shrugs, very laidback. He seems to indicate it's Kakashi's own fault for bringing these people with him in apprehending the traitor. Anko says, "He can look as deep as he wants to," and then she sticks out her tongue. It's clearly something she copied from the traitor sitting in front of them, Kakashi recognises the same technique from the fight-- Anko's tongue is at least as long and agile. He didn't want to know about this, he's pretty sure.

"No need to get all up in a huff," Jiraiya replies. "You have to admit it's suspicious."

"If there's anyone here who should be suspected of collaborating with *him*" --Anko spits the word, also very reminiscent of said person--"then it should be his former teammate, not the person he condemned to slavery."

"Hey," Tenzō protests, "you weren't actually a slave. You choose his apprenticeship."

This is the moment Shikaku--anyone, really!-- should step in. This is only going to degenerate from this moment. Kakashi looks at Shikaku who is very interested in the tiles on the opposite roof outside of the window. He's clearly checked out of the conversation--or he's trying to get at some hidden information by having full-grown shinobi bicker like children. This is not the moment for that, however, since Kakashi is currently more interested in how his genin team beat the exam, if they're even alive, and if Orochimaru managed to do something revolting to them. "It's not a fucking competition," he says, knocking on Tenzō's breastplate. He barely puts any strength in that, so it's a wonder Tenzō moves back a step.

Jiraiya nods, as if he wasn't the guy who derailed this conversation. Anko rolls her eyes so hard, they might fall out the other side.

"I don't think anyone here wanted Orochimaru to get at ... Uchiha Sasuke, I suppose." Kakashi says, and Shikaku suddenly looks focused again. Focused on Orochimaru, and Kakashi can see the twitch at the Uchiha. "Looking for a Sharingan, no doubt," Kakashi speculates further, and either, this is a double-bluff (a triple bluff? How many are you supposed to count?) or Orochimaru is being frightfully transparent about his plans. Which means they aren't over.

"What did you think about his teammates?" Kakashi asks, because there’s no reward for no risk. In reaction, Orochimaru’s face goes blank. Kakashi would be lying if he didn’t feel relieved about that—Orochimaru hadn’t meant to go for the Kyuubi, then. Now he was wondering what was so special about the Uchiha’s teammates—but he would have been back for Sasuke anyway.

"I’d much rather know what he’d been doing the past five years or so," Jiraiya says. The blank look passes as quickly as it had appeared, giving way to the annoyed look of an exasperated teammate.

"Well, I think you have this interrogation well in hand," Kakashi says to Shikaku. He’s not trying to be quiet about it, and it merits a jab in his side from Tenzō who always wants him to be a more upstanding boss. Shikaku has arranged himself with Kakashi’s foibles, or maybe he’s just not bothered enough to argue, and waves him off.

Tenzō follows him out.

"Are you going to pass out in the next alleyway over?" he asks. This is insubordination, and Kakashi would protest immediately at his maligned constitution—if he wasn’t sure if he would make it into the next alleyway.

Soldier pills are a last resort for a reason, and he’s been spending chakra like it grows on trees in the last few hours. "Tenzō!" he says cheerfully, and leans on him so that Tenzō has to prop him up or he would fall too. "So little faith in me!"

Tenzō does his job admirably, making it seem as if Kakashi’s not feeble at all. "Why have the gods forsaken me like this," he says, and Kakashi is proud of him. His little emotionless pet has learned the power of sarcasm. Kakashi wipes a fake crocodile tear from his eyes.

With Tenzō’s help, he manages to cross all the way to training ground 44 again, where an infirmary had been set up to deal with the genin, and a medic nin chewed him out for fretting over his team to the point of chakra exhaustion. Kakashi let him in the belief that he hadn’t been taking soldier pills left and right, and hadn’t fought anyone over the rank of genin in the past, oh, 3 months or so, because medic nin felt better when you lied to them a little bit.

Then, of course, his genin arrive at the tower.

* * *

 

Naruto is extolling their adventure to one Umino Iruka, the academy teacher who was very concerned about Kakashi’s evaluating techniques. Kakashi is only slightly resentful.

Naruto describes every single punch he threw in excruciating detail. The way he leaves out the important details — like the identity of his attacker, or even the village to whom the attacker belongs to; or the very suspicious intervention of a half-formed ANBU team with woodworking abilities — will not be very apparent to any listener. Kakashi is reasonably sure not even Umino-sensei can tell that Naruto is disassembling while talking a mile a minute. Naruto would be such a great diplomat, Kakashi thinks, not for the first time. Totally unpredictable, and wildly uncomfortable for anyone. It’s a good thing Kakashi isn’t responsible for these sort of assignments, and if he has any say in it, never will be.

Not only his former Academy teacher is listening attentively. They are surrounded by enemy nin, and it’s excellent that Naruto who can be a little slow on the uptake sometimes, recognises that. Sasuke scowls as if Naruto is actually revealing village secrets, which only strengthens the subterfuge, and Sakura is busy angling her head so she can look at—Team 8.

Kakashi lays a hand on Sasuke’s shoulder. He doesn’t move, even though it makes him tremble a bit which is an improvementHe nudges his head into the direction of a quite corner, and Sasuke follows him without acknowledgment. Kakashi registers the eyes of Umino following him, which is no surprise. The eyes of another genin--white haired, glasses, slim built-- and the Team from Sand are a surprise, however.

"The fight," Kakashi says out loud, and supplements his words with signs for snake and creepy enemy. "Did it leave any marks." It's an important question, and Kakashi can't believe he didn't ask for it right after they had apprehended Orochimaru. This was why it was a fool's idea to give him a genin team that knew nothing about the usual procedure. Kakashi knew nothing about the usual procedures! What if his genin had been incapacitated by one of Orochimaru's experimental seals? The man was insane.

"Seals?" asks Sasuke, who has his moments of frightening intelligence. Usually, they're hidden behind the unbearing sulking all of the time, but sometimes a bit of genius shines through all the mud.

"That would be one mark that would be quite a hindrance," Kakashi says. "Especially if it's left to linger in the rest of your chakra system."

Sasuke pauses, deliberates-- Kakashi hopes he doesn't think to hide any seals he got, oh no, please, not again. Then, Sasuke quickly signs the handseal for explosion followed by orange. It's their preferred seal for Naruto -- fishcake didn't stick because Naruto signed it so often. It's a bit obvious to most people in the village, too, for a private signing language, but orange explosion isn't all that obscure either. Not that Naruto is, particularly.

But that changes things somewhat. And explains why the outward perimeter guard reported a red, corrosive chakra. "Did he... react violently?" Kakashi asks. Maybe the Nine-Tailed Fox burned the seal away. The first time that beast would be useful against something, too.

"No," Sasuke answers. He seems upset, somehow. "He couldn't spam his clones like he usually does."

Kakashi's finetuned ears hear the gasp. It comes from the corner of the Sand Team. He doesn't react to it, there's worse things they could have learned about Naruto. Sasuke twitches. Had he also heard the gasp? If so, Sasuke's hearing was much higher than the base average without training. Sasuke doesn't say anything, which only shows he received better training than the Kazekage's kids, for which Kakashi is sort of proud. Instead he signs, "Secret?"

And Kakashi shakes his head. No, Naruto's clone spamming would come out as soon as there was preliminaries--and there would be preliminaries, with 5 teams already at the tower. It isworrying -- Kakashi doesn't know any harmless seals who could have divorced Naruto from his chakra. "You need to come see me as soon as you're able to," he tells Sasuke. Then again, what Kakashi knows about seals can fit on a couple of scrolls. There's no way he's going to look at Naruto here though, where everyone could find out about his status as a jinchuuriki. He looks toward the hidden ANBU guard--but if he halts the exam now, there'll only be negative consequences. What was he going to say? That a foreign enemy invaded the exam and preyed on children? They'd be an international laughing stock. Kakashi sighs, deeply. He understands Shikaku better than ever, who says he'd be happier not knowing half as much as he does, and feels every bone of his 24-year-old body. He needs a vacation.

Kakashi wishes they could eliminate the plans for defending from an invasion, now that they have Orochimaru imprisoned, but knowing the bastard, they probably played right into his hands. Kakashi wishes they had a different second-in-command than Danzo or Jiraiya, but Tsunade has been frequenting the brothels in Rice Country again (he gets a postcards with very attractive pinup girls once in a while)

And Kakashi should really rather be worrying about which of his genin would pass onto the third stage and if he could get away with taking all three on them on a training trip. Konoha valued teamwork, didn't it? Shouldn't they be training as a team for as long as possible, then?

Kakashi leaned against a tree, and tried to gauge the level of his chakra exhaustion. It was pretty bad, but he wagered he wouldn't fall unconscious if he summoned one of his dogs to talk him out of stupid decisions again. He scratched his arm, and performed the seal sequence.

"What now," Pakkun popped out of thin air. "Don't think I've forgotten about your promise of barbequed meat-sticks."

Kakashi felt faint, but it was probably relief about some things always remaining the same. "It's good to see you, too, Pakkun. How've you been? I've fought the Snake Summoner."

Pakkun looks him up and down. "Wow," he says. "You're still alive. He must have been decripit."

"So much faith in your summoner," Kakashi sighs, but he has to smile. He had also thought he was going to be dust. "I can fight much better without you ruining even jutsu I try."

Pakkun shrugs his entire body. "He was probably wounded and already on the ground, and someone else held him down for you. You're not very efficient about your chakra use, you know. And you've been out of fuel for a year now. Someday, time is going to run out on you."

"It hasn't yet," Kakashi says. "But here's an idea that might prolong my suffering."

"Let's hear it," Pakkun says, and snuggles into Kakashi's legs. "It's bound to be very stupid, I just know it."Kakashi doesn't see his genin team until they're done with the exam, of course. He could have predicted that, as the world like to punish him with maximal discomfort just because. In fact, they meet at the hospital, because Sakura is unconscious. She lost her fight with Ino-- or to be more precise, they both lost their fight to each other.

"It's stupid," Sasuke mutters, and it's probably the first time Kakashi agrees with him. Kakashi isn't sure he like having the same opinion as Sasuke, on anything. "Ino knocked herself out with her own jutsu, Sakura should advance just because."

"Well," Kakashi dithers, because maybe he should coach it into the terms of self-sacrifice for the greater good? But he can't convey that convincingly.

"But if Ino had teammates, then they could have gotten her out of the fight," Naruto argues. "She knocked out her enemy! Sakura didn't manage that!"

"She managed to turn back a jutsu used for torture on her opponent who should have been more used to the consequences," argued Sasuke. "If that went around, Sakura would be a great asset to every enemy of Konoha! She showed much more innovation than Ino," Sasuke seemed to realise he was much more engaged than usual, and only muttered the last sentence. Then, he scoffed. "She failed, anyway. And if she had teammates, we'd have totally taken down Shikamaru and Cho."

"No way! Shikamaru's smart!"

"Did you just say you were going to loose, loser?" Sasuke asks. He's halfway out of his seat and ready to throw down. Kakashi is trying to ignore his behaviour behind the cover of his book. If he couldn't see it, it wasn't happening, right?

That's when Sakura wakes up. "Ino, I will bury you in the ground," she yells. Kakashi sighs. Why were all his students just so aggressive? He bet Gai never had these kinds of problem.

"You lost," Sasuke says, deadpan.

"Nooo!" Naruto says. "Ino fell unconscious, same as you! It was pretty epic."

"You can't continue on with the next part of the exam," Sasuke adds.

Sakura's face falls. Kakashi peeks from behind the book cover and says, "It was a very well-done maneuver to incapacitate a Yamanaka. I'm sure Inoichi would like to know how you've done it."

Sakura blushes, and hides her face underneath the hospital blanket. "Thank you?" she says.

"It was super awesome!" Naruto says. "I've never seen anything like it! Suddenly, you went to the ground! And then Ino went to the ground! And you didn't even touch each other!""But I still lost," Sakura says, and scrunches the bedsheet between her hands. Her pink hair is all over the place, and if she could see herself in the mirror, she'd be freaking out, but it's all the more adorable for it.

"Yes, you did," Sasuke says. "You should train more, and next time you won't loose because of a stupid bloodline limit." Kakashi can see how Sasuke might think that would be encouraging. It's probably how his father tried to motivate him. It's not exactly the most motivating speeches.

Naruto pokes him in the side. "Don't be so harsh on her!" he complains. "You did good."

"I didn't do well," Sakura corrects him, and then asks, "Do I have to stay in hospital?"

"No," Kakashi answers, then considers himself. "Well, you should probably stay until someone has come to see you. Yamanaka techniques can have unintended consequences. Ino should really have thought before she used her untried jutsu on a shinobi of the village. It's one thing if she would have used it on an enemy combatant, but an ally? From the same village? I hope you will afford your opposites better fighting chances," he says to Sasuke and Naruto, who have nothing so debilitating in their arsenal yet.

"Sure thing, sensei!" Naruto says anyway, and Sasuke grunts. It may or may not be in affirmation.

"We could sneak you out of the hospital, too," offers Kakashi. "I'm pretty sure Ino didn't do you that much damage."

"I can wait for the nurse," Sakura says, dubiously looking towards the door. Kakashi's pretty sure if they wait another few minutes she's going to take him up on his offer. Nobody likes the hospital, not even the medics.

"A more important question I have is, do you want to continue training with us, Sakura?" Kakashi asks.

"Yes, of course!" Sakura answers immediately, as if there's no other answer to give. "You're my team, who else would I train with?"

Kakashi, who had at least thought she would ponder it some more, and who had about 20 different options of who else Sakura might want to train with, not to talk about the monthlong holiday she could take from training, too, if she felt like it, nods as if he hadn't expected a different answer.

"Well, then, we should go to the Hokage and announce our plans, before he decides on something different. Sakura, still want to wait for that nurse?"

Sakura takes another look at the door, and then quietly confesses, "No."

"Oh, good!" Kakashi says cheerfully, and when she carefully wobbles upright, he offers her his back. "One time offer, only" he tells Naruto who eyes his back with glee. "Only because she found a way to disrupt the Yamanaka technique."

"Unfair!" Naruto complains. "I could have totally won against Ino! Where's my piggyback ride?"

Sasuke looks him up and down. "Sensei probably doesn't want to carry you because you eat so much Ramen."

* * *

 

"Are you calling me fat?!"

With Sakura on his back, Kakashi takes off out of the window with a smile, his other two genin bickering behind him.

"Ah," the Hokage says, when they're led through the door. "Just the team I was looking for!" 

This is a suspicious phrasing, but Naruto doesn't know better yet, so he enthusiastically greets the old man. "I passed the exam!" he yells after his customary greeting. 

It's even more suspicious, because the room is filled with ANBU and other intelligence staff. It's never a good occasion when the Hokage wants witnesses to a conversation. 

"Yes, yes," Sarutobi smiles indulgently. "You will still have to perform well during the third phase, but I'm sure you'll do me proud." 

"I will, absolutely!" Naruto yells with enthusiasm. 

"There is, however, the question of where your teacher will be in the month leading up to the exam," Shikaku says. And, of course, he's there. Orochimaru's questioning must have not gone well at all, if he's still here. 

If Kakashi didn't have a genin team, he would have jumped out of the window immediately. 

"Who are you?" Sasuke says. He is very rude about it, and Kakashi is very proud. 

Shikaku doesn't take offence, he never takes offence-- he slouches more, looks more like a bum begging for money than the Chief Officer of Tactics and Espionage. It fools no one. 

"I propose we send him out to contact our substitute Hokage, that she may have sufficient warning to return before an eventual invasion decapitates our government." Shikaku says. 

"Huh?" Naruto asks. 

The Hokage sighs. "I fear it's going to be necessary. I'm not the youngest anymore, and should I be forced to fight, I can't guarantee I will survive the encounter unchanged." 

Kakashi does think that that's the first true thing the Hokage said. It is a disconcerting image, but Sarutobi had retired once before, now over 13 years in the past. He's not getting younger through the stress of the office. 

"Will Tsunade return, that's the question?" asks a council member. 

"That was always the question," another answers. 

"She's a legacy, of course she will. She knows duty." 

"Does she know duty?" Shikaku asks. It's almost blasphemous, and there are gasps at his audacity. "She left." 

"She's on a sabbatical," the Hokage answers calmly, and he would know. "She needed one." 

"But for 13 years?" the council member questions again. "That seems rather excessive." 

Kakashi, too, would like to take a break for 13 years-- it's a very abstract thought, he isn't able to sit still for the time it takes to endure a routine medical examination. He doesn't know why Tsunade abandoned them, but he also knows he isn't going to convince her to come back.

If Tsunade saw him, worked down to the bone, with chronic chakra exhaustion and his penchant towards fainting during dramatic moments, she'd chain him to a bed and then run away to hide him on a different continent. Kakashi is the first to admit he can't take care of himself, but Tsunade wouldn't blame him, she'd blame the Hokage. She'd blame the Hokage for many things, and that's part of why she hasn't come back, and adding to her reasons to blame the Hokage for everything will sure as hell not bring her back.

Shikaku should know better. Shikaku knows better! Who could have persuaded him to try... Ah. Jiraiya. Of course.

"I'm going to protest this decision most strenuously," Kakashi says. Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Shikaku grinning. The fucker planned this. Of course, he never likes to be told what to do.

"Why?" a council member asks. Kakshis is electing to ignore the comments from the cheap seats, and focuses all of his attention on the Hokage. The Hokage who has thrown his money among this team, this team that exists despite many many protests, from the Civilians, from the Shinobi forces who fear another Uchiha massacre, from the council members who think Kakashi is a loose canon because he happens to have Uzushio seals on him, Uzushio heritage and doesn't try to hide it.

"I have a genin team that I have taken responsibility for, and this is probably the most important time of their lives. I am unable to abandon them at this point in time. You can, of course, imagine what could happen if I take them to look for the whereabouts of Senju Tsunade."

A benevolent murmur goes through the crowd. It's partly because his words go counter to his more public image--that of a failing jōnin with too many failed teams, hiding his involvement with the special forces badly but sufficiently.

"It's not for the shinobi to question his orders," the same grouchy council member says, but both Kakashi and the Hokage ignore the interruption. 

The Hokage grimaces. "You have the most personal bonds to Senju Tsunade," he says, and this turns the whispers into questions. The circumstances of his birth aren't wildly known, especially not that Senju Tsunade bullied her way into letting his parents consider her as godmother, a Uzushio tradition that hasn't been well-regarded in Konoha for the past few years. Kakashi would like to believe it had nothing to do with Jiraiya being Naruto's godfather, but he's not kidding himself.

Neither of them want to remind their audience that Kakashi is one of the few remaining Uzushio refugees, a village group hit among the hardest by the wars, by the Kyuubi attack, by the austerity measures implemented by the civil council. There's a reason Kakashi doesn't protest his orders, usually, and it's only half because usually his orders are what he wants to do anyway.

Kakashi straightens. There's never been something this important on the line. He doesn't have the resources, either diplomatically, or with his own power, to lead. He may have the ANBU, but if he's not able to back up his threats, that may fall quickly. And then, he has three genin to protect, genin, without the support system genin usually have, two orphans and one from a civilian family. This is beyond the pale. Kakashi doesn't know what the Hokage is thinking. He suspects he isn't thinking, is still occupied with his student trying to invade the village, and can't look over his own desk.

"That's not true," Kakashi says. "There's someone in the village right now with closer bonds to Tsunade-sama than I have. Two someone's, in fact, three if we're counting Hokage-sama." It will always be the responsibility of Jiraiya to bring back Tsunade, because he is part of the reason she left, leaving himself.

"He has responsibilities," the Hokage says.

Kakashi blinks. Is the Hokage trying to say that spying on the general population is more important than the training of Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura?

Shikaku twitches, and it's very satisfying to watch.

"I can order you to bring back Tsunade," the Hokage tries. He's already given up, Kakashi can see, but because he continues to try, he's losing Kakashi's last respect.

Kakashi grows stone-cold. Fuck you, he thinks loudly. "No," he says simply. "You can't."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Please don't kill me?) This is the end of the Konoha arc! The next arc will be set outside of Konoha.  
> I always intended this story to end this way. I hope it makes sense, because I was trying to push Kakashi's loyalty to its breaking point. At what point would this soldier who had devoted his entire life to this village try to break free? Lol, putting it like that makes it sound deep. I hope it was fun to watch!


End file.
